MASTER 

NEGATIVE 

NO.  94-82004- 4 


COPYRIGHT  STATEMENT 


The  copyright  law  of  the  United  States  (Title  17,  United  States  Code) 
governs  the  making  of  photocopies  or  other  reproductions  of  copyrighted 
materials  including  foreign  works  under  certain  conditions.  In  addition, 
the  United  States  extends  protection  to  foreign  works  by  means  of 
various  international  conventions,  bilateral  agreements,  and 
proclamations. 


Under  certain  conditions  specified  in  the  law,  libraries  and  archives  are 
authorized  to  furnish  a  photocopy  or  other  reproduction.  One  of  these 
specified  conditions  is  that  the  photocopy  or  reproduction  is  not  to  be 
"used  for  any  purpose  other  than  private  study,  scholarship,  or  research." 
If  a  user  makes  a  request  for,  or  later  uses,  a  photocopy  or  reproduction 
for  purposes  in  excess  of  "fair  use,"  that  user  may  be  liable  for  copyright 
infringement. 

The  Columbia  University  Libraries  reserve  the  right  to  refuse  to  accept  a 
copying  order  if,  in  its  judgement,  fulfillment  of  the  order  would  involve 
violation  of  the  copyright  law. 


Author 


U.S.  President, 
1901-1909  (Roosevelt) 

Title: 

Message  of  the  President 
of  the  United  States,,. 


Place: 


Washington 

Date: 

1908 


? 


D.C 


^^'S?ooH'^ 


MASTER   NEGATIVE   « 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY   LIBRARJfc 
PRESERVATION    DIVISION 

BIBLIOGRAPHIC   MICROFORM   TARGET 


ORIGINAL  MATERIAL  AS  FILMED  •     EXISTING  BIBLIOGRAPHIC  RECORD 


Presiient.    1901-1909    (Roosevelt) 


3^c.f**  Mes8ap,e    of   th;e    President   C3f  the   United   States 
communicated    to    the?    two   houses    cf  Confess   at   the 

be  Firming!   of   th.e    second    aer^sion    of   the    eixtieth 
Congress*        Washington,    Govt,    Drirt*    off,,    1, P^A, 
44  p.        plates*.      24   en. 


w 


RESTRICTIONS  ON  USE; 


TECHNICAL  MICROFORM  DATA 


FILM  SIZE: 


REDUCTION  RATIO;     l^H 


IMAGE  PLACEMENT:   lA      HA     IB      IIB 


DATE  FILMED;        %  I  -^^ 


INITIALS: Si 


TRACKING  #  ; 


A)  ^  hi     nr^o  <  ■) 


FILMED  BY  PRESERVATION  RESOURCES.  BETHLEHEM.  PA, 


Intentional  Second 
Exposures  due  to 

Fade  Variations  and 

Photographs 


^, 


CD 


O    y;, 

o 
m 

3  X 


TT 


C/^' 


CI    r~^ 


H 


^^^> 


KD 


^ 


%i^. 


00 

^ 

(Jl 

CJl 

5 

3 

> 

CD 

o  m 


OQ   _ 

■f  "  \ 

r-     C/) 


^^^ 


^. 


j^: 


^ 


^. 


^^. 


m^    o„ 


•<* 


> 


(II 

O 

3 
3 


^^ 


.i^^ 


^p 


& 


\&> 


■^^^^\^ 


8 


<<^^ 

•.<:<'^    . 


^^ 


^fcP 


k'b 


^o 


fp 


'f^ 


<MSm*Jlb. 


^"iMMtf^ 


r'=i^i5rE|!|5|; 


O^ 


00 


NJ 

b 


NO 


to 
bo 


NO 


1.0  mm 


1.5  mm 


2.0  mm 


ABCDEFGHI IKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 
abcdetghi|kimnopqrstuvw«y7 1 234667890 


ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz  1234567890 


ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 

1234567890 


4> 


¥=» 


f^ 


f^ 


m 
■^ 

o 

o 

"O  rn  13 

Om  , 

««-j  ***  ;^ 


m 


2.5  mm 


ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 

1234567890 


t— - 

K> 

CJl 

O 

— 

= 

01 

or 

0) 

ABC 
cdef 

n  >» 

2;m 

FGH 
jkim 

HIJKLMN 
Tinopqrst 

IJKLMN 
nopqrst 

OPQRST 

uvwxyzl 

OPQR 

uvwxy 

[^"^ 

r^  CO 

'—— 1 

CTiX 

•^-c 

OOM 
IX) 

5^ 

o 

OiX 

^-<c 

OOM 

VO 

o 

■i!^ 


Coliiintjia.  ^liiiurrsitpc^ 


LIBRARY 


School  of  Business 


i 


I 


t' 


1 


MESSAGE 


OF  THE 


y 


S      ) 


EM    OF  THE 


UNITED  STATES 


COMMUNICATED    TO   THB 


TWO  HOUSES  OF  CONGRESS 


AT  THE 


BEGINNING  OF  THE  SECOND  SESSION 
OF  THE  SIXTIETH  CONGRESS 


WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT   PRINTING   OFFICE 
1908 


^- 


(3--- 


5 


MESSAGE. 


\:^>MJ'>^^,a 


5lo  'o 


-7 


uc  C<? 


'      » 


I 


To  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives: 

The  financial  standing  of  the  Nation  at  the  present  time  is  excel- 
lent, and  the  financial  management  of  the  Nation's  interests  by  the 

Government  during  the  last  seven  years  has 
Finances.  shown   the   most   satisfactory  results.     But   our 

currency  system  is  imperfect,  and  it  is  earnestly 
to  be  hoped  that  the  Currency  Commission  will  be  able  to  propose 
a  thoroughly  good  system  which  will  do  away  with  the  existing 

defects. 

During  the  period  from  July  i,  1901,  to  September  30,  1908,  there 
was  an  increase  in  the  amount  of  money  in  circulation  of  $902,991,399. 
The  increase  in  the  per  capita  during  this  period  was  $7.06.  Within 
this  time  there  were  several  occasions  when  it  was  necessary  for  the 
Treasury  Department  to  come  to  the  relief  of  the  money  market  by 
purchases  or  redemptions  of  United  States  bonds;  by  increasing 
deposits  in  national  banks;  by  stimulating  additional  issues  of 
national  bank  notes,  and  by  facilitating  importations  from  abroad  of 
gold.  Our  imperfect  currency  system  has  made  these  proceedings 
necessary,  and  they  were  effective  until  the  monetary  disturbance 
in  the  fall  of  1907  immensely  increased  the  difficulty  of  ordinary 
methods  of  relief.  By  the  middle  of  November  the  available  work- 
ing balance  in  the  Treasury  had  been  reduced  to  approximately 
$5,000,000.  Clearing  house  associations  throughout  the  country 
had  been  obliged  to  resort  to  the  expedient  of  issuing  clearing  house 
certificates,  to  be  used  as  money.  In  this  emergency  it  was  deter- 
mined to  invite  subscriptions  for  $50,000,000  Panama  Canal  bonds, 
and  $100,000,000  three  per  cent  certificates  of  indebtedness  au- 
thorized by  the  act  of  June  13,  1898.  It  was  proposed  to  re-deposit 
in  the  national  banks  the  proceeds  of  these  issues,  and  to  permit 
their  use  as  a  basis  for  additional  circulating  notes  of  national 
banks.  The  moral  effect  of  this  procedure  was  so  great  that  it  was 
necessary  to  issue  only  $24,631,980  of  the  Panama  Canal  bonds  and 
$15,436,500  of  the  certificates  of  indebtedness. 


h' 


2 


During  the  period  from  July  i,  1 901,  to  September  30,  1908,  the 
balance  between  the  net  ordinary  receipts  and  the  net  ordinary 
expenses  of  the  Government  showed  a  surplus  in  the  four  years 
1902,  1903,  1906  and  1907,  and  a  deficit  in  the  years  1904,  1905, 
1908  and  a  fractional  part  of  the  fiscal  year  1909.  The  net  result 
was  a  surplus  of  $99,283,413.54.  The  financial  operations  of  the 
Government  during  this  period,  based  upon  these  differences  between 
receipts  and  expenditures,  resulted  in  a  net  reduction  of  the  interest- 
bearing  debt  of  the  United  States  from  $987,141,040  to  $897,253,990, 
notwithstanding  that  there  had  been  two  sales  of  Panama  Canal 
bonds  amounting  in  the  aggregate  to  $54,631,980,  and  an  issue  of 
three  per  cent  certificates  of  indebtedness  under  the  act  of  June  13, 
1898,  amounting  to  $15,436,500.  Refunding  operations  of  the 
Treasury  Department  under  the  act  of  March  14,  1900,  resulted  in 
the  conversion  into  two  per  cent  consols  of  1930  of  $200,309,400 
bonds  bearing  higher  rates  of  interest.  A  decrease  of  $8,687,956  in 
the  annual  interest  charge  resulted  from  these  operations. 

In  short,  during  the  seven  years  and  three  months  there  has  been  a 
net  surplus  of  nearly  one  hundred  millions  of  receipts  over  expendi- 
tures, a  reduction  of  the  interest-bearing  debt  by  ninety  millions,  in 
spite  of  the  extraordinary  expense  of  the  Panama  Canal,  and  a  saving 
of  nearly  nine  millions  on  the  annual  interest  charge.  This  is  an 
exceedingly  satisfactory  showing,  especially  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
during  this  period  the  Nation  has  never  hesitated  to  undertake  any 
expenditure  that  it  regarded  as  necessary.  There  have  been  no  new 
taxes  and  no  increases  of  taxes;  on  the  contrary  some  taxes  have 
been  taken  off;  there  has  been  a  reduction  of  taxation. 

As  regards  the  great  corporations  engaged  in  interstate  business, 
and  especially  the  railroads,  I  can  only  repeat  what  I  have  already 

again  and  again  said  in  my  messages  to  the  Con- 
Corporations,  gress.     I  believe  that  under  the  interstate  clause 

of  the  Constitution  the  United  States  has  com- 
plete and  paramount  right  to  control  all  agencies  of  interstate 
commerce,  and  I  believe  that  the  National  Government  alone  can 
exercise  this  right  with  wisdom  and  effectiveness  so  as  both  to 
secure  justice  from,  and  to  do  justice  to,  the  great  corporations 
which  are  the  most  important  factors  in  modern  business.  I 
believe  that  it  is  worse  than  folly  to  attempt  to  prohibit  all  com- 
binations as  is  done  by  the  Sherman  anti-trust  law,  because  such  a 
law  can  be  enforced  only  imperfectly  and  unequally,  and  its  enforce- 
ment works  almost  as  much  hardship  as  good.  I  strongly  advocate 
that  instead  of  an  unwise  effort  to  prohibit  all  combinations,  there 


» 


shall  be  substituted  a  law  which  shall  expressly  permit  combina- 
tions which  are  in  the  interest  of  the  public,  but  shall  at  the  same 
time  give  to  some  agency  of  the  National  Government  full  power  of 
control  and  supervision  over  them.  One  of  the  chief  features  of  this 
control  should  be  securing  entire  publicity  in  all  matters  which  the 
public  has  a  right  to  know,  and  furthermore,  the  power,  not  by  judi- 
cial but  by  executive  action,  to  prevent  or  put  a  stop  to  every  form 
of  improper  favoritism  or  other  wrongdoing. 

The  railways  of  the  country  should  be  put  completely  under  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Commission  and  removed  from  the  domain 
of  the  anti-trust  law.  The  power  of  the  Commission  should  be 
made  thoroughgoing,  so  that  it  could  exercise  complete  supervision 
and  control  over  the  issue  of  securities  as  well  as  over  the  raising 
and  lowering  of  rates.  As  regards  rates,  at  least,  this  power  should 
be  summary.  The  power  to  investigate  the  financial  operations  and 
accounts  of  the  railways  has  been  one  of  the  most  valuable  features 
in  recent  legislation.  Power  to  make  combinations  and  traffic 
agreements  should  be  explicitly  conferred  upon  the  railroads,  the 
permission  of  the  Commission  being  first  gained  and  the  combina- 
tion or  agreement  being  published  in  all  its  details.  In  the  interest 
of  the  public  the  representatives  of  the  public  should  have  com- 
plete power  to  see  that  the  railroads  do  their  duty  by  the  public, 
and  as  a  matter  of  course  this  power  should  also  be  exercised  so 
as  to  see  that  no  injustice  is  done  to  the  railroads.  The  share- 
holders, the  employees  and  the  shippers  all  have  interests  that 
must  be  guarded.  It  is  to  the  interest  of  all  of  them  that  no  swin- 
dling stock  speculation  should  be  allowed,  and  that  there  should 
be  no  improper  issuance  of  securities.  The  guiding  intelligences 
necessary  for  the  successful  building  and  successful  management  of 
railroads  should  receive  ample  remuneration;  but  no  man  should  be 
allowed  to  make  money  in  connection  with  railroads  out  of  fraudu- 
lent over-capitalization  and  kindred  stock-gambling  performances; 
there  must  be  no  defrauding  of  investors,  oppression  of  the  farmers 
and  business  men  who  ship  freight,  or  callous  disregard  of  the  rights 
and  needs  of  the  employees.  In  addition  to  this  the  interests  of  the 
shareholders,  of  the  employees,  and  of  the  shippers  should  all  be 
guarded  as  against  one  another.  To  give  any  one  of  them  undue 
and  improper  consideration  is  to  do  injustice  to  the  others.  Rates 
must  be  made  as  low  as  is  compatible  with  giving  proper  returns  to 
all  the  employees  of  the  railroad,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  and 
proper  returns  to  the  shareholders;  but  they  must  not,  for  instance, 
be  reduced  in  such  fashion  as  to  necessitate  a  cut  in  the  wages  of 


the  employees  or  the  abolition  of  the  proper  and  legitimate  profits 
of  honest  shareholders. 

Telegraph  and  telephone  companies  engaged  in  interstate  busi- 
ness should  be  put  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Interstate  Com- 
merce Commission. 

It  is  very  earnestly  to  be  wished  that  our  people,  through  their 
representatives,  should  act  in  this  matter.  It  is  hard  to  say  whether 
most  damage  to  the  country  at  large  would  come  from  entire  failure 
on  the  part  of  the  public  to  supervise  and  control  the  actions  of  the 
great  corporations,  or  from  the  exercise  of  the  necessary  govern- 
mental power  in  a  way  which  would  do  injustice  and  wrong  to  the 
corporations.  Both  the  preachers  of  an  unrestricted  individualism, 
and  the  preachers  of  an  oppression  which  would  deny  to  able  men 
of  business  the  just  reward  of  their  initiative  and  business  sagacity, 
are  advocating  policies  that  would  be  fraught  with  the  gravest  harm 
to  the  whole  countr}\  To  permit  every  lawless  capitalist,  every 
law-defying  corporation,  to  take  any  action,  no  matter  how  iniqui- 
tous, in  the  effort  to  secure  an  improper  profit  and  to  build  up 
privilege,  would  be  ruinous  to  the  Republic  and  would  mark  the 
abandonment  of  the  effort  to  secure  in  the  industrial  world  the  spirit 
of  democratic  fair-dealing.  On  the  other  hand,  to  attack  these 
wrongs  in  that  spirit  of  demagogy  which  can  see  wrong  only  when 
committed  by  the  man  of  wealth,  and  is  dumb  and  blind  in  the 
presence  of  wrong  committed  against  men  of  property  or  by  men  of 
no  property,  is  exactly  as  evil  as  corruptly  to  defend  the  wrongdo- 
ing of  men  of  wealth.  The  war  we  wage  must  be  waged  against 
misconduct,  against  wrongdoing  wherever  it  is  found;  and  we  must 
stand  heartily  for  the  rights  of  ever>^  decent  man,  whether  he  be  a 
man  of  great  wealth  or  a  man  who  earns  his  livelihood  as  a  wage- 
worker  or  a  tiller  of  the  soil. 

It  is  to  the  interest  of  all  of  us  that  there  should  be  a  premium 
put  upon  individual  initiative  and  individual  capacity,  and  an  ample 
reward  for  the  great  directing  intelligences  alone  competent  to  man- 
age the  great  business  operations  of  to-day.  It  is  well  to  keep  in 
mind  that  exactly  as  the  anarchist  is  the  worst  enemy  of  liberty 
and  the  reactionar}-  the  worst  enemy  of  order,  so  the  men  who  de- 
fend the  rights  of  property  have  most  to  fear  from  the  wrongdoers 
of  great  wealth,  and  the  men  who  are  championing  popular  rights 
have  most  to  fear  from  the  demagogues  who  in  the  name  of  popular 
rights  would  do  wrong  to  and  oppress  honest  business  men,  honest 
men  of  wealth;  for  the  success  of  either  type  of  wrongdoer  neces- 
sarily invites  a  violent  reaction  against  the  cause  the  wrongdoer 


nominally  upholds.  In  point  of  danger  to  the  Nation  there  is 
nothing  to  choose  between  on  the  one  hand  the  corruptionist,  the 
bribe-giver,  the  bribe-taker,  the  man  who  employs  his  great  talent 
to  swindle  his  fellow-citizens  on  a  large  scale,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  preacher  of  class  hatred,  the  man  who,  whether  from 
ignorance  or  from  willingness  to  sacrifice  his  country  to  his  am- 
bition, persuades  well-meaning  but  wrong-headed  men  to  try  to 
destroy  the  instruments  upon  which  our  prosperity  mainly  rests. 
Let  each  group  of  men  beware  of  and  guard  against  the  shortcom- 
ings to  which  that  group  is  itself  most  liable.  Too  often  we  see 
the  business  community  in  a  spirit  of  unhealthy  class  consciousness 
deplore  the  effort  to  hold  to  account  under  the  law  the  wealthy 
men  who  in  their  management  of  great  corporations,  w^hether  rail- 
roads, street  railways,  or  other  industrial  enterprises,  have  behaved 
in  a  way  that  revolts  the  conscience  of  the  plain,  decent  people. 
Such  an  attitude  can  not  be  condemned  too  severely,  for  men  of 
property  should  recognize  that  they  jeopardize  the  rights  of  prop- 
erty when  they  fail  heartily  to  join  in  the  effort  to  do  away  with  the 
abuses  of  wealth.  On  the  other  hand,  those  who  advocate  proper 
control  on  behalf  of  the  public,  through  the  State,  of  these  great 
corporations,  and  of  the  wealth  engaged  on  a  giant  scale  in  busi- 
ness operations,  must  ever  keep  in  mind  that  unless  they  do  scrupu- 
lous justice  to  the  corporation,  unless  they  permit  ample  profit,  and 
cordially  encourage  capable  men  of  business  so  long  as  they  act 
with  honesty,  they  are  striking  at  the  root  of  our  national  wellbeing; 
for  in  the  long  run,  under  the  mere  pressure  of  material  distress,  the 
people  as  a  whole  would  probably  go  back  to  the  reign  of  an  unre- 
stricted individualism  rather  than  submit  to  a  control  by  the  State 
so  drastic  and  so  foolish,  conceived  in  a  spirit  of  such  unreasonable 
and  narrow  hostility  to  wealth,  as  to  prevent  business  operations 
from  being  profitable,  and  therefore  to  bring  ruin  upon  the  entire 
business  community,  and  ultimately  upon  the  entire  body  of 
citizens. 

The  opposition  to  Government  control  of  these  great  corporations 
makes  its  most  effective  effort  in  the  shape  of  an  appeal  to  the  old 
doctrine  of  States*  rights.  Of  course  there  are  many  sincere  men 
who  now  believe  in  unrestricted  individualism  in  business,  just  as 
there  were  formerly  many  sincere  men  who  believed  in  slavery- — that 
is,  in  the  unrestricted  right  of  an  indi\ddual  to  own  another  indi- 
vidual. These  men  do  not  by  themselves  have  great  weight,  how- 
ever. The  effective  fight  against  adequate  Government  control  and 
supervision  of  individual,  and  especially  of  corporate,  wealth  engaged 


in  interstate  business  is  chiefly  done  under  cover;  and  especially 
under  cover  of  an  appeal  to  States'  rights.    It  is  not  at  all  infre- 
quent  to  read  in   the  same   speech   a  denunciation  of   predatory 
wealth  fostered  by  special  privilege  and  defiant  of  both  the  pub- 
lic welfare  and  law  of  the  land,  and  a  denunciation  of  centralization 
in  the  Central  Government  of  the  power  to  deal  with  this  centralized 
and  organized  wealth.     Of   course  the  policy  set  forth    in   such 
twin  denunciations  amounts  to  absolutely  nothing,  for  the  first  half 
is  nullified  by  the  second  half.     The  chief  reason,  among  the  many 
sound  and  compelling  reasons,  that  led    to  the   formation  of  the 
National  Government,  was  the  absolute  need  that  the  Union,  and 
not  the  several  States,  should  deal  with  interstate  and  foreign  com- 
merce; and  the  power  to  deal  with  interstate  commerce  was  granted 
absolutely  and  plenarily  to  the  Central  Government  and  was  exer- 
cised completely   as    regards   the   only  instruments"  of    interstate 
commerce  known  in  those  days— the  waten\'ays,  the  highroads,  as 
well    as    the  partnerships  of   individuals  who  then   conducted  all 
of  what  business  there  was.     Interstate  commerce  is  now  chiefly 
conducted  by  railroads;  and  the  great  corporation  has  supplanted  the 
mass  of  small  partnerships  or  individuals.     The  proposal  to  make 
the  National  Government  supreme  over,  and  therefore  to  give  it 
complete  control  over,  the  railroads  and  other  instruments  of  inter- 
state commerce  is  merely  a  proposal  to  carry  out  to  the  letter  one  of 
the  prime  purposes,  if  not  the  prime  purpose,  for  which  the  Consti- 
tution was  founded.     It  does  not  represent  centralization.     It  repre- 
sents merely  the  acknowledgment  of  the  patent  fact  that  centrali- 
zation has  already  come  in  business.     If  this  irresponsible  outside 
business  power  is  to  be  controlled  in  the  interest  of  the  general 
public  it  can  only  be  controlled  in  one  way;  by  giving^  adequate 
power  of  control  to  the  one  sovereignty  capable  of  exercising  such 
power— the    National    Government.     Forty  or  fifty  separate  state 
governments  can  not  exercise  that  power  over  corporations  doing 
business  in  most  or  all  of  them;  first,  because  they  absolutely  lack  the 
authority  to  deal  with  interstate  business  in  any  form;  and  second, 
because  of  the  inevitable  conflict  of  authority  sure  to  arise  in  the  effort 
to  enforce  different  kinds  of  state  regulation,  often  inconsistent  with 
one  another  and  sometimes  oppressive  in  themselves.     Such  divided 
authority  can  not  regulate  commerce  with  wisdom  and  effect.     The 
Central  Government  is  the  only  power  which,  without  oppression, 
can  nevertheless  thoroughly  and  adequately  control  and  supervise 
the  large  corporations.     To  abandon  the  effort  for  National  con- 
trol means  to  abandon  the  effort  for  all  adequate  control  and  yet 


I, 


to  render  likely  continual  bursts  of  action  by  State  legislatures, 
which  can  not  achieve  the  purpose  sought  for,  but  which  can  do  a 
great  deal  of  damage  to  the  corporation  without  conferring  any  real 
benefit  on  the  public. 

I  believe  that  the  more  farsighted  corporations  are  themselves 
coming  to  recognize  the  unwisdom  of  the  violent  hostility  they 
have  displayed  during  the  last  few  years  to  regulation  and  control 
by  the  National  Government  of  combinations  engaged  in  interstate 
business.  The  truth  is  that  we  who  believe  in  this  movement  of 
asserting  and  exercising  a  genuine  control,  in  the  public  interest, 
over  these  great  corporations  have  to  contend  against  two  sets  of 
enemies,  who,  though  nominally  opposed  to  one  another,  are  really 
allies  in  preventing  a  proper  solution  of  the  problem.  There  are, 
first,  the  big  corporation  men,  and  the  extreme  individualists  among 
business  men,  who  genuinely  believe  in  utterly  unregulated  busi- 
ness— that  is,  in  the  reign  of  plutocracy;  and,  second,  the  men 
who,  being  blind  to  the  economic  movements  of  the  day,  believe  in 
a  movement  of  repression  rather  than  of  regulation  of  corporations, 
and  who  denounce  both  the  power  of  the  railroads  and  the  exercise 
of  the  Federal  power  which  alone  can  really  control  the  railroads. 
Those  who  believe  in  efficient  national  control,  on  the  other 
hand,  do  not  in  the  least  object  to  combinations;  do  not  in  the 
least  object  to  concentration  in  business  administration.  On  the 
contrary,  they  favor  both,  with  the  all  important  proviso  that  there 
shall  be  such  publicity  about  their  workings,  and  such  thoroughgoing 
control  over  them,  as  to  insure  their  being  in  the  interest,  and  not 
against  the  interest,  of  the  general  public.  We  do  not  object  to 
the  concentration  of  wealth  and  administration ;  but  we  do  believe 
in  the  distribution  of  the  wealth  in  profits  to  the  real  owners,  and 
in  securing  to  the  public  the  full  benefit  of  the  concentrated  admin- 
istration. We  believe  that  with  concentration  in  administration 
there  can  come  both  the  advantage  of  a  larger  ownership  and  of  a 
[more  equitable  distribution  of  profits,  and  at  the  same  time  a  better 
service  to  the  commonwealth.  We  believe  that  the  administration 
should  be  for  the  benefit  of  the  many ;  and  that  greed  and  rascality, 
practiced  on  a  large  scale,  should  be  punished  as  relentlessly  as  if 
practiced  on  a  small  scale. 

We  do  not  for  a  moment  believe  that  the  problem  will  be  solved 
by  any  short  and  easy  method.  The  solution  will  come  only  by 
pressing  various  concurrent  remedies.  Some  of  these  remedies  must 
lie  outside  the  domain  of  all  government.  Some  must  lie  outside 
the  domain  of  the  Federal  Government.     But  there  is  legislation 


I 


f\ 


8 

which  the  Federal  Government  alone  can  enact  and  which  is  abso- 
lutely vital  in  order  to  secure  the  attainment  of  our  purpose.  IVIany 
laws  are  needed.  There  should  be  regulation  by  the  National  Gov- 
ernment of  the  great  interstate  corporations,  including  a  simple 
method  of  account  keeping,  publicity,  supervision  of  the  issue  of 
securities,  abolition  of  rebates  and  of  special  privileges.  There 
should  be  short  time  franchises  for  all  corporations  engaged  in  public 
business;  including  the  corporations  which  get  power  from  water 
rights.  There  should  be  National  as  well  as  State  guardianship 
of\iines  and  forests.  The  labor  legislation  hereinafter  referred 
to  should  concurrently  be  enacted  into  law. 

To  accomplish  this,  means  of  course  a  certain  increase  in  the  use 

of not  the  creation  of — power,  by  the  Central  Government.     The 

power  already  exists;  it  does  not  have  to  be  created;  the  only  ques- 
tion is  whether  it  shall   be  used   or  left   idle— and   meanwhile  the 
corporations  over  which  the  power  ought  to  be  exercised  will  not 
remain  idle.     Let  those  who  object  to  this  increase  in  the  use  of  the 
only   power   available,   the   national    power,   be  frank,   and   admit 
openly  that  they  propose   to   abandon  any  effort  to   control    the 
great  business   corporations   and    to   exercise   super\4sion   over  the 
accumulation  and   distribution  of  wcallli;  fur  such  supervision  and 
control  can  only  come  through  this  particular  kin«l  of  increase  of 
power.      We  no  more  believe   in   that  empiricism  which  demands 
absolutely  unrestrained  individualism  than  we  do  in  that  empiricism 
which  clamors  for  a  deadening  socialism   which  would  destroy  all 
individual  initiative  and  wonld   rnin  the   country  with   a   complete- 
ness that  not  even  an  unrestrained  individualism  itself  could  achieve. 
The  danger  to  American  democracy  lies  not  in  the  least  in  the  con- 
centration of  administrative  power  in   responsible  and   accountable 
hands.      It  lies  in  liavinq-   the   power    insufficicnlU-  concentrated,  so 
that  no  one  can  be  held  responsible  to  the  people  for  its  use.      Con- 
centrated   power    is    palpable,   visible,   responsible,   easily   reached, 
quickly  held   to  account.      Power  scattered  thron,o;h  many  adminis- 
trators, many  legislators,  many  men  who  work  behind  and  through 
legislators  and  administrators,  is  impalpable,  is  iniscen,  is  irrespon- 
sible, can   not  be  reached,  can  not  be  held  to  account.      Democracy 
is  in  peril  wherever  the  administration  of  political  power  is  scattered 
amono-  a  variety  of   men  wdio  work  in  secret,  whose  \ery  names  are 
unknown  to  the  common   people.      It  is  not  in  peril  from  an\-  man 
who  derives  authority  from  the  people,  who  exercises  it  in  sight  of 
the  people,  and  who  is  from   time  to  time  compelled   to  give  an 
account  of  its  exercise  to  the  people. 


|.vl 


There  are  many  matters  affecting  labor  and  the  status  of  the  wage- 
worker  to  which  I  should  like  to  draw  your  attention,  but  an  exhaust- 
ive discussion  of  the  problem  in  all  its  aspects 
Labor.  is  not  now  necessary.      This    administration    is 

nearing  its  end;  and,  moreover,  under  our  form 
of  government  the  solution  of  the  problem  depends  upon  the 
action  of  the  States  as  much  as  upon  the  action  of  the  Nation. 
Nevertheless,  there  are  certain  considerations  which  I  wish  to 
set  before  you,  because  I  hope  that  our  people  will  more  and 
more  keep  them  in  m.ind.  A  blind  and  ignorant  resistance  to 
ever>^  effort  for  the  reform  of  abuses  and  for  the  readjustment  of 
society  to  modern  industrial  conditions  represents  not  true  conserv- 
atism but  an  incitement  to  the  wildest  radicalism;  for  wise  radical- 
ism and  wise  conservatism  go  hand  in  hand,  one  bent  on  progress, 
the  other  bent  on  seeing  that  no  change  is  made  unless  in  the  right 
direction.  I  believe  in  a  steady  effort,  or  perhaps  it  would  be  more 
accurate  to  say  in  steady  efforts  in  man}-  different  directions,  to  bring 
about  a  condition  of  affairs  under  which  the  men  who  w^ork  with 
hand  or  witli  brain,  the  laborers,  the  superintendents,  the  men  who 
produce  for  the  market  and  the  men  wdio  find  a  market  for  the  arti- 
cles produced,  shall  own  a  far  greater  share  than  at  present  of  the 
wealth  they  produce,  and  be  enabled  to  invest  it  in  the  tools  and 
instruments  by  which  all  Avork  is  carried  on.  As  far  as  possible  I 
hope  to  see  a  frank  recognition  of  the  advantages  conferred  by 
machinery,  organization,  and  division  of  labor,  accompanied  by 
an  effort  to  bring  about  a  larger  share  in  the  ownership  b}'  wage- 
worker  of  railway,  mill,  and  factory.  In  farming,  this  simply 
means  that  we  wish  to  see  the  farmer  own  his  own  land;  we  do 
not  wish  to  see  the  farms  so  large  that  they  become  the  prop- 
erty of  absentee  landlords  who  farm  them  by  tenants,  nor  yet  so 
small  that  the  farmer  becomes  like  a  European  peasant.  Again, 
the  depositors  in  our  savings  banks  now  number  over  one-tenth 
of  our  entire  population.  These  are  all  capitalists,  who  through 
the  savings  banks  loan  their  money  to  the  workers — that  is,  in 
man\'  cases  to  themselves — to  carry  on  their  various  industries. 
The  more  we  increase  their  number,  the  more  we  introduce  the 
principles  of  cooperation  into  our  industry.  Every  increase  in  the 
number  of  small  stockholders  in  corporations  is  a  good  thing,  for 
the  same  reasons;  and  where  the  employees  are  the  stockholders 
the  result  is  particularly  good.  Very  nuich  of  this  movement  must 
be  outside  of  anything  that  can  be  accomplished  by  legislation;  but 
legislation  can  do  a  good  deal.     Postal  savings  banks  will  make  it 


^  1 


I 


ill 


lO 


h 


\\    :i- 


;» 


easy  for  the  poorest  to  keep  their  savings  in  absohite  safety.  The 
reo-nlation  of  the  national  hij2:hways  nuist  be  snch  that  thev  shall 
serve  all  people  with  eqnal  jnstice.  Corporate  finances  ninst  be 
supervised  so  as  to  make  it  far  safer  than  at  present  for  the  man  of 
small  means  to  invest  his  money  in  stocks.  There  nuist  be  pro- 
hibition of  child  labor,  diminution  of  woman  labor,  shortening-  of 
hours  of  all  mechanical  labor;  stock  watering-  should  be  prohib- 
ited, and  stock  gambling  so  far  as  is  possible  discouraged.  There 
should  be  a  progressive  inheritance  tax  on  large  fortunes.  Indus- 
trial education  should  be  encouraged.  As  far  as  possible  we  should 
lighten  the  burden  of  taxation  on  the  small  man.  We  should  put 
a  premium  upon  thrift,  hard  work,  and  business  energ}-;  but  these 
qualities  cease  to  be  the  main  factors  in  accumulating  a  fortune 
long  before  that  fortune  reaches  a  point  where  it  would  be  seriously 
affected  by  any  inheritance  tax  such  as  I  propose.  It  is  eminently 
right  that  the  Nation  should  fix  the  terms  upon  which  the  great 
fortunes  are  inherited.  They  rarely  do  good  and  the>'  often  do 
harm  to  those  who  inherit  them   in  their  entirety. 

The  above  is  the  merest  sketch,  hardly  even  a  sketch  in  outline, 
of  the  reforms  for  which  we  should  work.     But  there  is  one  matter 

with  which  the  Congress  should  deal  at  this  scs- 
Protection  for  •'^ic»n.     There  should  no  longer  be  an\-  paltering 

Wageworkers.  ^vith  the  question   of  taking  care  of   the   wage- 

workers  who,  under  our  present  industrial  system, 
become  killed,  crippled,  or  worn  out  as  part  of  the  regular  incidents 
of  a  given  business.  The  majority  of  wageworkers  must  ha\  e  their 
rights  secured  for  them  by  State  action;  but  the  National  Govern- 
ment should  legislate  in  thoroughgoing  and  far-reaching  fasliion 
not  only  for  all  employees  of  the  National  Government,  but  for  cdl 
persons  engaged  in  interstate  commerce.  The  object  sought  for 
could  be  achieved  to  a  measurable  degree,  as  far  as  those  killed  or 
crippled  are  concerned,  by  proper  employers'  liability  laws.  As  far 
as  concerns  those  who  have  been  worn  out,  I  call  >our  attention  to 
the  fact  that  definite  steps  toward  providing  old-age  pensions  have 
been  taken  in  many  of  our  private  industries.  These  maybe  indefi- 
nitely extended  through  \'oluntary  association  and  contributory 
schemes,  or  through  the  agency  of  savings  l)anks,  as  under  the 
recent  IMassachusetts  plan.  To  strengthen  these  practical  measures 
should  be  our  immediate  duty;  it  is  not  at  present  necessary  to 
consider  the  larger  and  more  general  governmental  schemes  that 
most  European  governments  have  found  themselves  obliged  to 
adopt. 


II 


Our  present  system,  or  rather  no  S3'stem,  works  dreadful  wrong, 
and  is  of  benefit  to  only  one  class  of  people — the  lawyers.  When  a 
workman  is  injured  what  he  needs  is  not  an  expensive  and  doubtful 
lawsuit,  but  the  certainty  of  relief  through  immediate  administrative 
action.  The  number  of  accidents  which  result  in  the  death  or  crip- 
pling of  wageworkers,  in  the  Union  at  large,  is  simply  appalling; 
in  a  very  few  years  it  runs  up  a  total  far  in  excess  of  the  aggregate 
of  the  dead  and  wounded  in  any  modern  war.  No  academic  theory 
about  "freedom  of  contract"  or  ''constitutional  libertv  to  contract" 
should  be  permitted  to  interfere  wdth  this  and  similar  movements. 
Progress  in  civilization  has  everywhere  meant  a  limitation  and  reg- 
ulation of  contract.  I  call  your  especial  attention  to  the  bulletin  of 
the  Bureau  of  Labor  which  gives  a  statement  of  the  methods  of 
treating  the  unemployed  in  European  countries,  as  this  is  a  subject 
which  in  Germany,  for  instance,  is  treated  in  connection  w^ith  mak- 
ing provision  for  worn  out  and  crippled  workmen. 

Pending  a  thoroughgoing  investigation  and  action  there  is  certain 
legislation  which  should  be  enacted  at  once.  The  law,  passed  at 
the  last  session  of  the  Congress,  granting  compensation  to  certain 
classes  of  employees  of  the  Government,  should  be  extended  to  include 
all  employees  of  the  Government  and  should  be  made  more  liberal 
in  its  terms.  There  is  no  good  ground  for  the  distinction  made  in 
the  law  between  those  engaged  in  hazardous  occupations  and  those 
not  so  engaged.  If  a  man  is  injured  or  killed  in  any  line  of  work, 
it  was  hazardous  in  his  case.  Whether  i  per  cent  or  lo  per  cent  of 
those  following  a  given  occupation  actually  suffer  injury  or  death 
ought  not  to  have  any  bearing  on  the  question  of  their  receiving 
compensation.  It  is  a  grim  logic  wdiich  says  to  an  injured  employee 
or  to  the  dependents  of  one  killed  that  he  or  they  are  entitled  to  no 
compensation  because  very  few  people  other  than  he  have  been 
injured  or  killed  in  that  occupation.  Perhaps  one  of  the  most 
striking  omissions  in  the  law  is  that  it  does  not  embrace  peace 
officers  and  others  whose  lives  may  be  sacrificed  in  enforcing  the 
laws  of  the  United  States.  The  terms  of  the  act  providing  com- 
pensation should  be  made  more  liberal  than  in  the  present  act.  A 
year's  compensation  is  not  adequate  for  a  wage-earner's  family  in  the 
event  of  his  death  by  accident  in  the  course  of  his  employment.  And 
in  the  event  of  death  occurring,  say,  ten  or  eleven  months  after  the 
accident,  the  family  would  only  receive  as  compensation  the  equiva- 
lent of  one  or  two  months'  earnings.  In  this  respect  the  generosity 
of  the  United  States  towards  its  employees  compares  most  unfavorably 
with  that  of  every  country  in  Europe — even  the  poorest. 


r' 


'M 


!H 


13 


i 
♦ 


'If 

V 


■1) 


12 

The  terms  of  the  act  are  also  a  hardship  in  prohibiting  payment 
in  cases  where  the  accident  is  in  anv  wav  dne  to  the  neofliircnce  of 
the  employee.  It  is  inevitable  that  daily  familiarity  with  danger 
will  lead  men  to  take  chances  that  can  be  constrned  into  ne<rli<jence. 
So  well  is  this  recognized  that  in  practically  all  conntries  in  the  civi- 
lized world,  except  the  United  States,  only  a  great  degree  of  negli- 
gence acts  as  a  bar  to  secnring  compensation.  Probably  in  no  other 
respect  is  our  legislation,  both  State  and  National,  so  far  behind 
practically  the  entire  civilized  world  as  in  the  matter  of  liability 
and  compensation  for  accidents  in  industry.  It  is  humiliating  that 
at  P^uropean  international  congresses  on  accidents  the  United  vStates 
should  be  singled  out  as  the  most  belated  among  the  nations 
in  respect  to  employers'  liability  legislation.  This  Crovernmcnt  is 
itself  a  large  employer  of  labor,  and  in  its  dealings  with  its  em- 
ployees it  should  set  a  standard  in  this  cotintry  which  would  place 
it  on  a  par  with  the  most  progressive  countries  in  Murope.  The 
laws  of  the  United  States  in  this  respect  and  the  laws  of  European 
countries  have  been  suiumarized  in  a  recent  Bulletin  of  the  Bureau 
of  Labor,  and  no  American  who  reads  this  sunnnary  can  fail  to  be 
struck  by  the  great  contrast  between  our  practices  and  theirs — a 
contrast  not  in  any  sense  to  our  credit. 

The  Congress  should  without  further  delay  pass  a  model  employ- 
ers' liability  law  for  the  District  of  Cohimbia.  The  employers' 
liability  act  recently  declared  unconstitutional,  on  account  of  appar- 
ently including  in  its  provisions  employees  engaged  in  intrastate 
commerce  as  well  as  those  engaged  in  interstate  commerce,  has  been 
held  by  the  local  courts  to  be  still  in  effect  so  far  as  its  provisions 
apply  to  the  District  of  Columbia.  There  should  be  no  ambiguity 
on  this  point.  If  there  is  any  doubt  on  the  subject,  the  law  should 
be  reenacted  with  special  reference  to  the  District  of  Columbia. 
This  act,  however,  applies  only  to  employees  of  common  carriers. 
In  all  other  occupations  the  liabilit}-  law  of  the  District  is  the  old 
common  law.  The  severity  and  injustice  of  the  common  law  in 
this  matter  has  been  in  some  degree  or  another  modified  in  the 
majority  of  our  States,  and  the  only  jurisdiction  under  the  exclusive 
control  of  the  Congress  should  be  ahead  and  not  behind  the  States 
of  the  Union  in  this  respect.  A  comprehensive  employers'  liability 
law  shotild  be  passed  for  the  District  of  Columbia. 

I  renew  my  recommendation  made  in  a  previous  message  that 
half-holidays  be  granted  dtiring  summer  to  all  wage-workers  in 
Government  employ. 


I 


13 

I  also  renew  my  recommendation  that  the  principle  of  the  eight- 
hour  day  should  as  rapidly  and  as  far  as  practicable  be  extended  to 
the  entire  work  being  carried  on  by  the  Government ;  the  present 
law  should  be  amended  to  embrace  contracts  on  those  public  works 
which  the  present  wording  of  the  act  seems  to  exclude. 

I  most  earnestly  urge  upon  the  Congress  the  duty  of  increasing 
the  totally  inadequate  salaries  now  given  to  our  Judges.     On  the 

whole  there  is  no  body  of  public  servants  wdio  do 
The  Courts.  ^s  valuable  work,  nor  whose  moneyed  reward  is  so 

inadequate  compared  to  their  work.  Beginning 
with  the  Supreme  Court  the  Judges  should  have  their  salaries  dou- 
bled. It  is  not  befitting  the  dignity  of  the  Nation  that  its  most 
honored  public  servants  should  be  paid  sums  so  small  compared  to 
what  they  would  earn  in  private  life  that  the  performance  of  public 
service  by  them  implies  an  exceedingly  heavy  pecuniary^  sacrifice. 

It  is  earnestly  to  be  desired  that  some  method  should  be  devised 
for  doing  away  with  the  long  delays  which  now  obtain  in  the 
administration  of  justice,  and  which  operate  with  peculiar  severity 
against  persons  of  small  means,  and  favor  only  the  ver>^  criminals 
whom  it  is  most  desirable  to  punish.  These  long  delays  in  the  final 
decisions  of  cases  make  in  the  aggregate  a  crying  evil;  and  a  remedy 
should  be  devised.  Much  of  this  intolerable  delay  is  due  to  improper 
regard  paid  to  technicalities  which  are  a  mere  hindrance  to  justice. 
In  some  noted  recent  cases  this  over-regard  for  technicalities  has 
resulted  in  a  striking  denial  of  justice,  and  flagrant  wTong  to  the 
body  politic. 

At  the  last  election  certain  leaders  of  organized  labor  made  a  vio- 
lent and  sweeping  attack  upon  the  entire  judiciary  of  the  country, 
an  attack  couched  in  such  terms  as  to  include  the  most  upright, 
honest  and  broad-minded  judges,  no  less  than  those  of  narrower 
mind  and  more  restricted  outlook.  It  was  the  kind  of  attack  admir- 
ably fitted  to  prevent  any  successful  attempt  to  reform  abuses  of  the 
judiciary,  because  it  gave  the  champions  of  the  imjust  judge  their 
eagerly  desired  opportunity  to  shift  their  ground  into  a  champion- 
ship of  just  judges  who  were  unjustly  assailed.  Last  year,  before 
the  House  Committee  on  the  Judiciary,  these  same  labor  leaders 
formulated  their  demands,  specifying  the  bill  that  contained  them, 
refusing  all  compromise,  stating  they  wished  the  principle  of  that 
bill  or  nothing.  They  insisted  on  a  provision  that  in  a  labor  dis- 
pute no  injunction  should  issue  except  to  protect  a  property  right, 
and  specifically  provided  that  the  right  to  carry  on  business  should 
not  be  construed  as  a  property  right;  and  in  a  second  provision 
a 


n 


'    n 


.•'fj 


u 


(1  * 

V 


1) 


14 

their  bill  made  legal  in  a  labor  dispute  any  act  or  agreement  by 
or  between  two  or  more  persons  that  would  not  have  been  unlaw- 
ful if  done  bv  a  single  person.  In  other  words,  this  bill  legalized 
blacklisting  and  boycotting  in  every  form,  legalizing,  for  instance, 
those  forms  of  the  secondary  bo>-cott  which  the  anthracite  coal 
strike  commission  so  unreservedly  condemned;  while  the  right  to 
carry  on  a  business  was  explicitly  taken  out  from  under  that  pro- 
tection which  the  law  throws  over  property.  The  demand  was 
made  that  there  should  be  trial  by  jury  in  contempt  cases,  thereby 
most  seriously  impairing  the  authority  of  the  courts.  All  this  rep- 
resented a  course  of  policy  which,  if  carried  out,  would  mean  the 
enthronement  of  class  privilege  in  its  crudest  and  most  brutal  form, 
and  the  destruction  of  one  of  the  most  essential  functions  of  the 
judiciar}^  in  all  civilized  lands. 

The  violence  of  the  crusade  for  this  legislation,  and  its  complete 
failure,  ilhistrate  two  truths  which  it  is  essential  our  people  should 
learn.     In   the  first  place,  they  ought  to  teach    the  workingman, 
the  laborer,  the  wageworker,  that  by  demanding  what  is  improper 
and  impossible  he  plays  into  the  hands  of  his  foes.     Such  a  crude 
and  vicious  attack  upon  the  courts,  even  if  it  were  temporarily  suc- 
cessful, would  inevitably  in  the  end   cause  a  violent  reaction   and 
would  band  the  great  mass  of  citizens  together,  forcing  them  to 
stand  by  all  the  judges,  competent  and  incompetent  alike,  rather 
than  to  see  the  wheels  of  justice  stopped.     A  movement  of  this 
kind  can  ultimately  result  in  nothing  but  damage  to  those  in  whose 
behalf  it  is  nominally  undertaken.     This  is  a  most  healthy  truth, 
which  it  is  wise  for  all  our  people  to  learn.     Any  movement  based 
on  that   class   hatred  which  at  times  assumes  the  name  of  "  class 
consciousness"  is  certain  ultimately  to  fail,  and  if  it  temporarily 
succeeds,  to  do  far-reaching  damage.     "Class  consciousness,"  where 
it  is  merely  another  name  for  the  odious  vice  of  class  selfishness,  is 
equally  noxious  whether  in  an  employer\s  association  or  in  a  work- 
ingman's  association.      The  movement  in  question  was  one  in  which 
the  appeal  was  made  to  all  workingmen  to  vote  primarih',  not  as 
American  citizens,  but  as  individuals  of  a  certain  class  in  society. 
Such  an  appeal  in  the  first  place  revolts  the  more  high-minded  and 
far-sighted  among  the  persons  to  whom  it  is  addressed,  and  in  the 
second  place  tends  to  arouse  a  strong  antagonism  among  all  other 
classes   of   citizens,  whom    it  therefore  tends  to  unite  against  the 
ver>^  organization  on  whose  behalf  it  is  issued.     The  result  is  there- 
fore unfortunate  from  every  standpoint.     This  healthy  truth,  by  the 
way,  will  be  learned  by  the  socialists  if  they  ever  succeed  in  estab- 


15 

lishing  in  this  country  an  important  national  party  based  on  such 
class  consciousness  and  selfish  class  interest. 

The  wageworkers,  the  workingmen,  the  laboring  men  of  the 
country  by  the  way  in  which  they  repudiated  the  effort  to  get  them 
to  cast  their  votes  in  response  to  an  appeal  to  class  hatred,  have 
emphasized  their  sound  patriotism  and  Americanism.  The  w^hole 
country  has  cause  to  feel  pride  in  this  attitude  of  sturdy  independ- 
ence, in  this  uncompromising  insistence  upon  acting  simply  as 
good  citizens,  as  good  Americans,  without  regard  to  fancied — and 
improper — class  interests.  Such  an  attitude  is  an  object-lesson  in 
good  citizenship  to  the  entire  nation. 

But  the  extreme  reactionaries,  the  persons  who  blind  themselves 
to  the  wrongs  now  and  then  committed  by  the  courts  on  laboring 
men,  should  also  think  seriously  as  to  w^hat  such  a  movement  as 
this  portends.  The  judges  who  have  shown  themselves  able  and 
willing  effectively  to  check  the  dishonest  activity  of  the  very  rich 
man  who  w^orks  iniquity  by  the  mismanagement  of  corporations,  who 
have  shown  themselves  alert  to  do  justice  to  the  w^agew^orker,  and 
sympathetic  wnth  the  needs  of  the  mass  of  our  people,  so  that  the 
dweller  in  the  tenement  houses,  the  man  w'ho  practices  a  dangerous 
trade,  the  man  who  is  crushed  by  excessive  hours  of  labor,  feel  that 
their  needs  are  understood  by  the  courts — these  judges  are  the  real 
bulwark  of  the  courts  ;  these  judges,  the  judges  of  the  stamp  of  the 
President-elect,  who  have  been  fearless  in  opposing  labor  when  it  has 
gone  wTong,  but  fearless  also  in  holding  to  strict  account  corpora- 
tions that  w^ork  iniquity,  and  far-sighted  in  seeing  that  the  working- 
man  gets  his  rights,  are  the  men  of  all  others  to  w^hom  w^e  owe  it  that 
the  appeal  for  such  violent  and  mistaken  legislation  has  fallen  on  deaf 
ears,  that  the  agitation  for  its  passage  proved  to  be  without  substantial 
basis.  The  courts  are  jeoparded  primarily  by  the  action  of  these  Fed- 
eral and  State  judges  who  show  inability  or  unwillingness  to  put  a  stop 
to  the  wrongdoing  of  very  rich  men  tnider  modern  industrial  con- 
ditions, and  inability  or  unwillingness  to  give  relief  to  men  of  small 
means  or  wageworkers  wdio  are  crushed  down  by  these  modern 
industrial  conditions;  who,  in  other  words,  fail  to  imderstand  and 
apply  the  needed  remedies  for  the  new  wTongs  produced  by  the  new 
and  highly  complex  social  and  industrial  civilization  which  has 
grown  up  in  the  last  half  century. 

The  rapid  changes  in  our  social  and  industrial  life  which  have 
attended  this  rapid  growth  have  made  it  necessary'  that,  in  applying 
to  concrete  cases  the  great  rule  of  right  laid  down  in  our  Constitu- 
tion, there  should  be  a  full  understanding  and  appreciation  of  the 


si 


•4 


K' 


1^ 


H      \ 


) 

1 

1 1 


i6 

new  conditions  to  which  the  rules  are  to  be  applied.     \Miat  wonld 
have  been  an  infringement  upon  libert}-  half  a  century  ago  may  be 
the  necessary  safeguard  of  liberty  to-day.     What  would  have  been 
an  injury  to  property  then  may  be  necessary  to  the  enjoyment  of 
property  now.     Every  judicial  decision  involves  two  terms — one,  an 
interpretation   of    the    law;    the    other,    the   tniderstanding  of    the 
facts    to    which    it    is    to   be    applied.      The    great    mass    of    our 
judicial  officers  are  I  believe  alive  to  these  changes  of  conditions 
which  so  materially  aflect  the  performance  of  their  judicial  duties. 
Our  judicial  system  is  sound  and  effective  at  core,  and  it  remains, 
and  must  ever  be  maintained,  as  the  safeguard   of  those  principles 
of  liberty  and  justice  which  stand  at  the  foundation  of  American 
institutions;    for,   as    Burke    finely  said,   when  liberty   and    justice 
are  separated,  neither  is  safe.     There  are,  however,  some  members 
of  the  judicial  body  who  have  lagged  behind  in  their  understanding 
of  these  great  and  vital  changes  in  the  body  politic,  whose  minds 
have  never  been  opened  to  the  new  applications  of  the  old  princi- 
ples made  necessary  by  the  new  conditions.     Judges  of  this  stamp 
do   lasting  harm  by   their  decisions,  because   they  convince  poor 
men  in  need  of  protection  that  the  courts  of  the  land  are  profoundly 
ignorant  of  and  out  of  sympathy  with  their  needs,  and  profoundly 
indifferent  or  hostile  to  any  proposed  remedy.     To  such   men   it 
seems  a  cruel  mockery  to  have  any  court  decide  against  them  on  the 
ground  that  it  desires  to  preserve  "liberty"  in  a  purely  technical 
form,    by    withholding    liberty    in     any    real     and    coustructive 
sense.     It    is   desirable    that    the   legislative   body  should   possess, 
and  wherever  necessary  exercise,  the  power  to  determine  whether 
in  a  given  case  emplo}'ers  and  employees  are  not  on  an  equal  foot- 
ing, so  that  the  necessities  of  the  latter  compel  them  to  submit  to 
such  exactions  as  to  hours  and  conditions  of  labor  as  unduly  to  tax 
their  strength;  and  only  mischief  can  result  when  such  determina- 
tion is  upset  on  the  ground  that  there  must  be  no  "  interference  with 
the  liberty  to  contract  "—often  a  merely  academic  "liberty,"  the 
exercise  of  which  is  the  negation  of  real  liberty. 

There  are  certain  decisions  by  various  courts  which  have  been 
exceedingly  detrimental  to  the  rights  of  wagcworkers.  This  is 
true  of  all  the  decisions  that  decide  that  men  and  women  are,  by 
the  Constitution,  "guaranteed  their  liberty"  to  contract  to  enter  a 
dangerous  occupation,  or  to  work  an  undesirable  or  improper  num- 
ber of  hours,  or  to  work  in  unhealthy  surroundings;  and  therefore 
can  not  recover  damages  when  maimed  in  that  occupation  and  can 
not  be  forbidden  to  work  what  the  legislature  decides  is  an  excessive 


17 

number  of  hours,  or  to  carr}-  on  the  work  under  conditions  which 
the  legislature  decides  to  be  unhealthy.  The  most  dangerous  occu- 
pations are  often  the  poorest  paid  and  those  where  the  hours  of  work 
are  longest;  and  in  many  cases  those  who  go  into  them  are  driven 
by  necessity  so  great  that  they  have  practically  no  alternative. 
Decisions  such  as  those  alluded  to  above  nullify  the  legislative  effort 
to  protect  the  wage-workers  who  most  need  protection  from  those 
employers  who  take  advantage  of  their  grinding  need.  They  halt 
or  hamper  the  movement  for  securing  better  and  more  equitable 
conditions  of  labor.  The  talk  about  preserving  to  the  miser}-- 
hunted  beings  who  make  contracts  for  such  service  their  "  liberty  " 
to  make  them,  is  either  to  speak  in  a  spirit  of  heartless  irony  or  else 
to  show  an  utter  lack  of  knowledge  of  the  conditions  of  life  among 
the  great  masses  of  our  fellow-countrymen,  a  lack  which  unfits  a 
judge  to  do  good  service  just  as  it  would  unfit  any  executive  or 
legislative  ofBcer. 

There  is  also,  I  think,  ground  for  the  belief  that  substantial  injus- 
tice is  often  suffered  by  employees  in  consequence  of  the  custom  of 
courts  issuing  temporary  injunctions  without  notice  to  them,  and 
punishing  them  for  contempt  of  court  in  instances  where,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  they  have  no  knowledge  of  any  proceedings.  Out- 
side of  organized  labor  there  is  a  widespread  feeling  that  this  system 
often  works  great  injustice  to  wageworkers  when  their  efforts  to 
better  their  working  condition  result  in  industrial  disputes.  A  tem- 
porary injunction  procured  ex  parte  may  as  a  matter  of  fact  have 
all  the  effect  of  a  permanent  injunction  in  causing  disaster  to  the 
wage-workers'  side  in  such  a  dispute.  Organized  labor  is  chafing 
under  the  unjust  restraint  which  comes  from  repeated  resort  to 
this  plan  of  procedure.  Its  discontent  has  been  unwisely  expressed, 
and  often  improperly  expressed,  but  there  is  a  sound  basis  for  it,  and 
the  orderly  and  law-abiding  people  of  a  community  would  be  in 
a  far  stronger  position  for  upholding  the  courts  if  the  undoubtedly 
existing  abuses  could  be  provided  against. 

Such  proposals  as  those  mentioned  above  as  advocated  by  the 
extreme  labor  leaders,  contain  the  vital  error  of  being  class  legisla- 
tion of  the  most  offensive  kind,  and  even  if  enacted  into  law  I  believe 
that  the  law  would  rightly  be  held  unconstitutional.  Moreover, 
the  labor  people  are  themselves  now  beginning  to  invoke  the  use  of 
the  power  of  injunction.  During  the  last  ten  years,  and  within  my 
own  knowledge,  at  least  fifty  injunctions  have  been  obtained  by 
lal)or  unions  in  New  York  City  alone,  most  of  them  being  to  pro- 
tect the  union  label  (a  "property  right"),  but  some  being  obtained 


.'4 


i8 


1   !t 


for  other  reasons  against  employers.  The  power  of  injunction 
is  a  great  eqnitablc  remedy,  which  shonld  on  no  acconnt  be 
destroyed.  Bnt  safegnards  should  be  erected  against  its  abnse. 
I  believe  that  some  snch  provisions  as  those  I  advocated  a  year  ago 
for  checking  the  abuse  of  the  issuance  of  temporary  injunctions 
should  be  adopted.  In  substance,  provision  should  be  made  that  no 
injunction  or  temporary  restraining  order  issue  otherwise  than  on 
notice,  except  wlierc  irreparable  injury  would  otherwise  result;  and 
in  such  case  a  hearing  on  the  merits  of  the  order  should  be  had 
within  a  short  fixed  period,  and,  if  not  then  continued  after  hearing, 
it  should  forthwith  lapse.  Decisions  should  1)e  rendered  immedi- 
ately, and  the  chance  of  delay  minimized  in  every  way.  Moreover, 
I  believe  that  the  procedure  should  be  sharpU-  defined,  and  the 
judge  required  minutely  to  state  the  particulars  both  of  his  action 
and'^of  his  reasons  therefor,  so  that  the  Congress  can  if  it  desires 
examine  and  investigate  the  same. 

The  chief  lawmakers  in  our  countr\-  may  l)e,  and  often  are,  the 
judges,  because  they  are  the  final  seat  of  authority.     Every  time  they 
interpret  contract,  property,  vested  rights,  due  process  of  law,  liberty, 
they  necessarily  enact  into  law  parts  of  a  system  of  social  i^liiloso- 
phy;  and  as  such  interpretation  is  fundamental,  they  give  direction 
to  all  law-making.     The  decisions  of  the   courts  on  economic  and 
social  questions  depend  upon  their  economic  and  social  philosophy; 
and  for  the  peaceful  progress  of  our  people  during  the  twentieth 
centur\-  we  shall  owe  most  to  those  judges  who  hold  to  a  twentieth 
centurv  economic  and  social  philosophy  and  not  to  a  long  outgrown 
philosophy,  which  was  itself  the  product  of  primitive  economic  con- 
ditions.    Of  course  a  judge's  views  on  progressive  social  philosophy 
are  entirelv  second  in  importance  to  his  possession  of  a  high  and 
fine  character;  which  means  the  possession  oi  such  elementary  vir- 
tues as  honesty,  courage,  and  fairmindedness.      The  judge  who  owes 
his  election  to  pandering  to  demagogic  sentiments  or  class  hatreds 
and  prejudices,  and  the  judge  who  owes  either  his  election  or  his 
appointment  to  the  money  or  the  favor  of  a  great  corporation,  are 
alike  unworthy  to  sit  on  the  bench,  are  alike  traitors  to  the  people; 
and  no  profundity  of  legal  learning,  or  correctness  of  abstract  con- 
viction on  questions  of  public  policy,  can  serve  as  an  offset  to  such 
shortcomings.     But  it  is  also  true  that  judges,  like  executives  and 
legislators,  should  hold  sound  views  on  the  questions  of  public  policy 
which  are  of  vital  interest  to  the  people. 

The  legislators  and  executives  are  chosen  to  represent  the  people 
in  enacting  and  administering  the  laws.     The  judges  are  not  chosen 


19 


to  represent  the  people  in  this  sense.     Their  function  is  to  interpret 
the  laws.     The  legislators  are  responsible  for  the  laws;  the  judges 
for  the  spirit  in  which  they  interpret  and  enforce  the  laws.     We 
stand  aloof  from  the  reckless  agitators  who  would  make  the  judges 
mere  pliant  tools  of  popular  prejudice  and  passion;  and  we  stand 
aloof  from  those  equally  unwise  partisans  of  reaction  and  privilege 
who    deny  tlie  proposition   that,  inasmuch    as   judges    are  chosen 
to    serve    the    interests   of    the   whole    people,   they   should    stri\e 
to  find    out    what    those    interests    are,   and,   so    far    as    they  con- 
scientiously can,  should  strive  to  give  effect  to  popular  conviction 
when  deliberately  and  duly    expressed  by  the   lawmaking   body. 
The    courts   are   to  be   highly  commended   and    staunchly  upheld 
when    they   set  their   faces  against    wrongdoing  or   tyranny  by  a 
majority;  but  they  are  to  be  blamed  when  they  fail  to  recognize 
under   a   government    like   ours   the   deliberate   judgment    of   the 
majority  as  to  a  matter  of  legitimate  policy,  when  duly  expressed 
by  the  legislature.     Such  lawfully  expressed  and  deliberate  judg- 
ment  should  be  given  effect  by  the  courts,  save  in  the  extreme  and 
exceptional    cases    where    there    has    been    a    clear    violation  of    a 
constitutional    provision.     Anything    like    frivolity  or  wantonness 
in    upsetting    such  clearly  taken    governmental  action    is  a  grave 
offense  against  the  Republic.     To  protest  against  t}Tanny,  to  pro- 
tect minorities  from   oppression,  to  nullify  an  act  committed  in  a 
spasm  of  popular  fury,  is  to  render  a  ser\'ice  to  the  Republic.      But 
for  the  courts  to  arrogate  to  themselves  functions  which  properly 
belong  to  the  legislative  bodies  is  all  wrong,  and  in  the  end  works 
mischief.     The  people  should  not  be  permitted  to  pardon  evil  and 
slipshod  legislation  on  the  theory  that  the  court  will  set  it  right;  they 
should  be  taught  that  the  right  way  to  get  rid  of  a  bad  law  is  to  have 
the  legislature  re2:>eal  it,  and  not  to  have  the  courts  by  ingenious  hair- 
splitting nullif)'  it.      A  law  may  be  unwise  and  improper;  but  it 
should    not   for  these    reasons   be  declared    unconstitutional    by  a 
strained  interpretation,  for  the  result  of  such  action  is  to  take  away 
from  the  people  at  large  their  sense  of  responsibility  and  ultimately 
to  destroy  their  capacity  for  orderly  self  restraint  and  self  government. 
Under  such  a  popular  government  as  ours,  founded  on  the  theor}-  that 
m  the  long  run  the  will  of  the  people  is  supreme,  the  ultimate  safety 
of  the  Nation  can  only  rest  in  training  and  guiding  the  people  so 
that  what  they  will  shall  be  right,  and  not  in  devising  means  to 
defeat  their  will  by  the  technicalities  of  strained  construction. 

For  many  of  the  shortcomings  of  justice  in  our  countrv^  our  peo- 
ple as  a  whole  are  themselves  to  blame,  and  the  judges  and  juries 


4 


m 


■V 
11 


tii 


lUl 

It 

'■fi 


ii^> 


,'< 


I' 


'•»!, 


I 

"ill 


•■*  • ' 


»? 


i 


20 

merely  bear  their  share  together  with  the  public  as  a  whole.  It  is 
discreditable  to  us  as  a  people  that  there  should  be  diflficulty  in  con- 
victing murderers,  or  in  bringing  to  justice  men  who  as  public 
servants  have  been  guilty  of  corruption,  or  who  have  profited  by 
the  corruption  of  public  servants.  The  result  is  equally  unfor- 
tunate, whether  due  to  hairsplitting  technicalities  in  the  interpre- 
tation of  law  by  judges,  to  sentimentality  and  class  consciousness 
on  the  part  of  juries,  or  to  hysteria  and  sensationalism  in  the  daily 
press.  For  much  of  this  failure  of  justice  no  responsibility  whatever 
lies  on  rich  men  as  such.  We  who  make  up  the  mass  of  the  people 
can  not  .shift  the  responsibility  from  our  own  shoulders.  But  there 
is  an  important  part  of  the  failure  which  has  specially  to  do  with 
inability  to  hold  to  proper  account  men  of  wealth  who  behave  badly. 

The  chief  breakdown  is  in  dealing  with  the  new  relations  that 
arise  from  the  nnitualism,  the  interdependence  of  our  time.  Every 
new  social  relation  begets  a  new  type  of  wrongdoing — of  sin,  to 
use  an  old-fashioned  word — and  many  years  alw^ays  elapse  before 
society  is  able  to  turn  this  sin  into  crime  which  can  be  effectively 
punished  at  law.  During  the  lifetime  of  the  older  men  now  alive  the 
social  relations  have  changed  far  more  rapidl}tlian  in  the  preceding 
two  centuries.  The  immense  growth  of  corporations,  of  business 
done  by  associations,  and  the  extreme  strain  and  pressure  of 
modern  life,  have  produced  conditions  which  render  the  public 
confused  as  to  who  its  really  dangerous  foes  are;  and  among  the 
public  servants  who  have  not  onh'  shared  this  confusion,  but  by 
some  of  their  acts  have  increased  it,  are  certain  judges.  Marked 
inefficiency  has  been  shown  in  dealing  with  corporations  and  in 
re-settling  the  proper  attitude  to  be  taken  by  the  public  not  only 
towards  corporations,  Ijut  towards  la])or,  and  towards  the  social 
questions  arising  out  of  the  factory  system,  and  the  enormous  growth 
of  our  great  cities. 

The  huge  wealth  that  has  been  accumulated  by  a  few  individ- 
uals of  recent  }-ears,  in  what  has  amounted  to  a  social  and  indus- 
trial revolution,  has  been  as  regards  some  of  these  individuals  made 
possible  only  by  the  improper  use  of  the  modern  corporation.  A 
certain  type  of  modern  corporation,  with  its  officers  and  agents,  its 
many  issues  of  securities,  and  its  constant  consolidation  with  allied 
undertakings,  fmally  becomes  an  instrumeu.t  so  complex  eis  to 
contain  a  greater  number  of  elements  that,  under  various  judicial 
decisions,  lend  themselves  to  fraud  and  oppression  than  any 
device  yet  evolved  in  the  human  brain.  Corporations  are  necessary 
instruments  of  modern   business.     They  have  been  permitted  to 


;^f 


21 

become  a  menace  largely  because  the  governmental  representatives 
of  the  people  have  worked  slowly  in  providing  for  adequate  control 
over  them. 

The  chief  offender  in  any  given  case  may  be  an  executive,  a  leg- 
islature, or  a  judge.     Every  executive  head  who  advises  violent, 
instead  of  gradual,  action,  or  who  advocates  ill-considered  and  sweep- 
ing measures  of  reform  (especially  if  they  are  tainted  with  vindic- 
tiveness,  and  disregard  for  the  rights  of  the  minority)  is  particularly 
blameworthy.      The   several    legislatures   are    responsible    for    the 
fact   that   our   laws   are   often  prepared  with  slovenly   haste    and 
lack   of   consideration.      Moreover,  they   are   often  prepared,    and 
still  more  frequently  amended  during  passage,  at  the  suggestion  of 
the  very  parties  against  whom   they  are  afterwards  enforced.     Our 
great  clusters  of  corporations,  huge  trusts  and  fabulously  wealthy 
multimillionaires,  employ  the  very  best  lawyers  they  can  obtain  to 
pick  flaws  in  these  statutes  after  their  passage;  but  they  also  employ 
a  class  of  secret  agents  who  seek,  under  the  advice  of  experts,  to 
render  hostile  legislation  innocuous  by  making  it  unconstitutional, 
often  through  the  insertion  of  what  appear  on  their  face  to  be  drastic 
and  sweeping  provisions  against  the  interests  of  the  parties  inspiring 
them;    while    the    demagogues,   the    corrupt    creatures   who    intro- 
duce   blackmailing    schemes    to    '' strike"    corporations,    and    all 
who  demand   extreme,   and    undesirably   radical,    measures,    show 
themselves   to  be  the   worst   enemies   of   the   ver}'   public    whose 
loud-mouthed  champions  they  profess  to  be.     A  ver>'  striking  illus- 
tration of  the  consequences  of  carelessness  in  the  preparation  of  a 
statute  w\as  the  employers'  liability  law  of  1906.     In  the  cases  aris- 
ing under  that  law,  four  out  of  six  courts  of  first  instance  held  it 
unconstitutional;  six  out  of  nine  justices  of  the  Supreme  Court  held 
that  its  subject-matter  was  within  the  province  of  congressional 
action;  and  four  of  the  nine  justices  held  it  valid.     It  was,  however, 
adjudged  unconstitutional  by  a  bare  majority  of  the  court — five  to 
four.     It  was  surely  a  very  slovenly  piece  of  work  to  frame  the  leg- 
islation in  such  shape  as  to  leave  the  question  open  at  all. 

Real  damage  has  been  done  by  the  manifold  and  conflicting  inter- 
pretations of  the  interstate  commerce  law\  Control  over  the  great 
corporations  doing  interstate  business  can  be  effective  only  if  it  is 
vested  with  full  power  in  an  administrative  department,  a  branch 
of  the  Federal  executive,  carrying  out  a  Federal  law;  it  can  never 
be  effective  if  a  divided  responsibility  is  left  in  both  the  States  and 
the  Nation;  it  can  never  be  effective  if  left  in  the  hands  of  the  courts 
to  be  decided  by  lawsuits. 


''111 


1 

I 


l\ 


t. 
H 

t; 

n 

H 
<l 


-'i;: 


Hi 

'i 


L  1 


■,i  <1 


i 


22 

The  courts  hold  a  place  of  peculiar  and  desen'ed  sanctity  under 
our  form  of  government.     Respect  for  the  law  is  essential  to  the 
permanence  of  our  institutions ;  and  respect  for  the  law  is  largely 
conditioned  upon  respect  for  the  courts.     It  is  an  offense  against 
the  Republic  to  say  anything  which  can  weaken  this  respect,  save 
for  the  gravest  reason  and  in  the  most  carefully  guarded  manner. 
Our  judges  should  be  held  in  peculiar  honor ;  and  the  duty  of  respect- 
ful and  truthful  comment  and  criticism,  which  should  be  binding 
when  we  speak  of  an>body,  should  be  especially  binding  when  we 
speak  of  them.     On  an  average  they  stand  above  any  other  serA'ants  of 
the  community,  and  the  greatest  judges  have  reached  the  high  level 
held  by  those  few  greatest  patriots  whom  the  whole  country  delights 
to  honor.     But  we  must  face  the  fact  that  there  are  wise  and  unwise 
judges,  just  as  there  are  wise  and  unwise  executives  and  legislators. 
When  a  president  or  a  governor  behaves  improperh'  or  unwisely, 
the  remedy  is  easy,  for  his  term   is  short;  the  same  is  true  with 
the  legislator,    although   not   to   the    same   degree,   for    he   is   one 
of  many  who  belong  to  some  given  legislative  body,  and  it  is  there- 
fore less  easy  to  fix  his  personal  responsibility  and  hold  him  account- 
able therefor.     With  a  judge,  who,  being  human,  is  also  likely  to 
err,  but  wdiose  tenure  is  for  life,  there  is  no  similar  way  of  holding 
him  to  responsibility.     Under  ordinary  conditions  the  only  forms 
of  pressure  to  which  he  is  in  any  way  amenable  arc,  public  opinion, 
and  the  action  of  his  fellow  judges.     It  is  the  last  which  is  most  ini- 
mediatelv  effective,  and  to  which  we  should  look  for  the  reform  of 
abuses.     Any  remedy  applied  from  without  is  fraught  with  risk.     It 
is  far  better,  from  every  standpoint,  that  the  remedy  should  come 
from  within.     In  no  other  nation  in  the  world  do  the  courts  wield 
such  vast  and  far-reaching  power  as  in  the  United  States.     All  that 
is  necessary  is  that  the  courts  as  a  whole  should  exercise  this  power 
with  the  farsighted  wisdom  already  shown  by  those  judges  who  scan 
the  future  while  they  act  in   the   present.      Let   them  exercise  this 
great  power  not  only  honestly  and  bravely,  but  with  wise  insight 
into  the  needs  and  fixed  purposes  of  the  people,  so  that  they  may  do 
justice,  and  work  equity,  so  that  they  may  protect  all  persons  in 
their  rights,  and  yet  break  down  the  barriers  of  privilege,  which  is 

the  foe  of  right. 

If  there  is  any  one  duty  which  more  than  another  we  owe  it  to 
our  children  and  our  children's  children  to  perform  at  once,  it  is 
to  save  the  forests  of  this  country,  for  they  constitute  the  first  and 
most  important  element  in  the  conservation  of  the  natural  re- 
sources of  the  country.     There  are  of  course  two  kinds  of  natural 


y 


i 


23 

resources.  One  is  the  kind  which  can  only  be  used  as  part  of  a 
process  of  exhaustion;  this  is  true  of  mines,  natural  oil  and  gas 

wells,  and  the  like.  The  other,  and  of  course 
Forests.  ultimately  by  far  the  most  important,  includes  the 

resources  which  can  be  improved  in  the  process 
of  wise  use ;  the  soil,  the  rivers,  and  the  forests  come  under  this  head. 
Any  really  civilized  nation  will  so  use  all  of  these  three  great 
national  assets  that  the  nation  will  have  their  benefit  in  the  future. 
Just  as  a  farmer,  after  all  his  life  making  his  living  from  his  farm, 
will,  if  he  is  an  expert  farmer,  leave  it  as  an  asset  of  increased 
value  to  his  son,  so  we  should  leave  our  national  domain  to  our 
children,  increased  in  value  and  not  worn  out.  There  are  small 
sections  of  our  own  country,  in  the  East  and  in  the  West,  in  the 
Adirondacks,  the  White  Mountains,  and  the  Appalachians,  and  in 
the  Rocky  ]\Iountains,  where  we  can  already  see  for  ourselves  the 
damage  in  the  shape  of  permanent  injury  to  the  soil  and  the  river 
systems  which  comes  from  reckless  deforestation.  It  matters  not 
whether  this  deforestation  is  due  to  the  actual  reckless  cutting  of 
timber,  to  the  fires  that  inevitably  follow  such  reckless  cutting 
of  timber,  or  to  reckless  and  uncontrolled  grazing,  especially  by  the 
great  migratory  bands  of  sheep,  the  unchecked  wandering  of  which 
over  the  countrv  means  destruction  to  forests  and  disaster  to  the 
small  home  makers,  the  settlers  of  limited  means. 

Shortsighted  persons,  or  persons  blinded  to  the  future  by  desire 
to  make  money  in  every  way  out  of  the  present,  sometimes  speak  as 
if  no  great  damage  would  be  done  by  the  reckless  destruction  of 
our  forests.  It  is  difficult  to  have  patience  with  the  arguments  of 
these  persons.  Thanks  to  our  own  recklessness  in  the  use  of  our 
splendid  forests,  we  have  already  crossed  the  verge  of  a  timber  fam- 
ine in  this  countr}^,  and  no  measures  that  we  now  take  can,  at  least 
for  many  years,  undo  the  mischief  that  has  already  been  done.  But 
we  can  prevent  further  mischief  being  done;  and  it  would  be  in  the 
highest  degree  reprehensible  to  let  any  consideration  of  temporar}^ 
convenience  or  temporary  cost  interfere  with  such  action,  especially 
as  regards  the  National  Forests  which  the  nation  can  7iow^  at  this 
very  moment,  control. 

All  serious  students  of  the  question  are  aware  of  the  great  damage 
that  has  been  done  in  the  IMediterranean  countries  of  Europe,  Asia, 
and  Africa  by  deforestation.  The  similar  damage  that  has  been 
done  in  Eastern  Asia  is  less  well  known.  A  recent  investigation 
into  conditions  in  North  China  by  IMr.  Frank  N.  Meyef,  of  the  Bureau 
of  Plant  Industry  of  the  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture, 


m 

J 

■il 

•v\ 


f  ■' 


m 


11 


I  ^ 


'    '{ 


24 

has  incidentally  furnished  in  vety  striking  fashion  proof  of  the  ruin 
that  comes  from  reckless  deforestation  of  mountains,  and  of  the 
further  fact  that  the  damage  once  done  may  prove  practically 
irreparable.  So  important  are  these  investigations  that  I  here- 
with attach  as  an  appendix  to  my  message  certain  photographs 
showing  present  conditions  in  China.  They  show  in  vivid  fash- 
ion the  appalling  desolation,  taking  the  shape  of  barren  mountains 
and  gravel-  and  sand-covered  plains,  which  immediately  follows 
and  depends  upon  the  deforestation  of  the  mountains.  Not  many 
centuries  ago  the  country  of  northern  China  was  one  of  the  most 
fertile  and  beautiful  spots  in  the  entire  world,  and  was  heavily 
forested.  We  know  this  not  only  from  the  old  Chinese  records, 
but  from  the  accounts  given  by  the  traveler,  IMarco  Polo.  He,  for 
instance,  mentions  that  in  visiting  the  provinces  of  Shansi  and 
Shensi  he  observed  many  plantations  of  mulberry  trees.  Now  there 
is  hardly  a  single  mulberry  tree  in  either  of  these  provinces,  and  the 
culture  of  the  silkworm  has  moved  farther  soutli,  to  regions  of 
atmospheric  moisture.  As  an  illustration  of  the  complete  change 
in  the  rivers,  we  may  take  Polo's  statement  that  a  certain  river,  the 
Hun  Ho,  was  so  large  and  deep  that  merchants  ascended  it  from 
the  sea  with  heavily  laden  boats;  today  this  river  is  simply  a  broad 
sandy  bed,  with  shallow,  rapid  currents  wandering  hither  and 
thither  across  it,  absolutely  unnavigable.  But  we  do  not  have 
to  depend  upon  written  records.  The  dry  wells,  and  the  wells 
with  water  far  below  the  former  watermark,  bear  testimony  to 
the  good  days  of  the  past  and  the  evil  days  of  the  present.  Wher- 
ever the  native  vegetation  has  been  allowed  to  remain,  as,  for 
instance,  here  and  there  around  a  sacred  temple  or  imperial  bur}'ing 
ground,  there  are  still  huge  trees  and  tangled  jungle,  fragments  of 
the  glorious  ancient  forests.  .  The  thick,  matted  forest  growth  form- 
erly covered  the  mountains  to  their  summits.  All  natural  factors 
favored  this  dense  forest  growth,  and  as  long  as  it  was  permitted 
to  exist,  the  plains  at  the  foot  of  the  mountains  were  among  the 
most  fertile  on  the  globe,  and  the  whole  country  was  a  garden. 
Not  the  slightest  effort  was  made,  however,  to  prevent  the  un- 
checked cutting  of  the  trees,  or  to  secure  reforestation.  Doubt- 
less for  many  centuries  the  tree-cutting  by  the  inhabitants  of  the 
mountains  worked  but  slowly  in  bringing  about  the  changes  that 
have  now  come  to  pass;  doubtless  for  generations  the  inroads  were 
scarcely  noticeable.  Ihit  there  came  a  time  when  the  forest 
had  shrunk  sufficiently  to  make  each  year's  cutting  a  serious 
matter,  and  from  that   time   on   the   destruction   proceeded   with 


Mmm» 


•mmmm 


■^w«p«li 


25 

appalling  rapidity;  for  of  course  each  year  of  destruction  ren- 
dered the  forest  less  able  to  recuperate,  less  able  to  resist  next 
year's  inroad.  Mr.  ]\Ieyer  describes  the  ceaseless  progress  of  the 
destruction  even  now,  when  there  is  so  little  left  to  destroy.  Every 
morning  men  and  boys  go  out  armed  with  mattox  or  axe,  scale  the 
steepest  mountain  sides,  and  cut  down  and  grub  out,  root  and 
branch,  the  small  trees  and  shrubs  still  to  be  found.  The  big  trees 
disappeared  centuries  ago,  so  that  now  one  of  these  is  never  seen 
save  in  the  neighborhood  of  temples,  where  they  are  artificially 
protected;  and  even  here  it  takes  all  the  watch  and  care  of 
the  tree-loving  priests  to  prevent  their  destruction.  Each  family, 
each  community,  where  there  is  no  common  care  exercised  in 
the  interest  of  all  of  them  to  prevent  deforestation,  finds  its  profit 
in  the  immediate  use  of  the  fuel  which  would  otherwise  be  used 
by  some  other  family  or  some  other  community.  In  the  total 
absence  of  regulation  of  the  matter  in  the  interest  of  the  whole 
people,  each  small  group  is  inevitably  pushed  into  a  policy  of 
destruction  which  can  not  afford  to  take  thought  for  the  morrow. 
This  is  just  one  of  those  matters  which  it  is  fatal  to  leave  to  unsu- 
pervised individual  control.  The  forests  can  only  be  protected  by 
the  State,  by  the  Nation;  and  the  liberty  of  action  of  individuals 
must  be  conditioned  upon  what  the  State  or  Nation  determines  to 
be  necessary  for  the  common  safety. 

The  lesson  of  deforestation  in  China  is  a  lesson  which  mankind 
should  have  learned  many  times  already  from  what  has  occurred  in 
other  places.  Denudation  leaves  naked  soil;  then  gullying  cuts 
down  to  the  bare  rock;  and  meanwhile  the  rock-waste  buries  the 
bottomlands.  When  the  soil  is  gone,  men  must  go;  and  the  process 
does  not  take  long. 

This  ruthless  destruction  of  the  forests  in  northern  China  has 
brought  about,  or  has  aided  in  bringing  about,  desolation,  just  as  the 
destruction  of  the  forests  in  central  Asia  aid  in  bringing  ruin  to  the 
once  rich  central  Asian  cities;  just  as  the  destruction  of  the  forests 
in  northern  Africa  helped  towards  the  ruin  of  a  region  that  was  a 
fertile  granary  in  Roman  days.  Shortsighted  man,  whether  bar- 
baric, semi-civilized,  or  what  he  mistakenly  regards  as  fully  civilized, 
when  he  has  destroyed  the  forests,  has  rendered  certain  the  ultimate 
destruction  of  the  land  itself.  In  northern  China  the  mountains 
are  now  such  as  are  shown  by  the  accompanying  photographs, 
absolutely  barren  peaks.  Not  only  have  the  forests  been  de- 
stroyed, but  because  of  their  destruction  the  soil  has  been  washed 
off  the  naked  rock.     The  terrible  consequence  is  that  it  is  impos- 


t 


0i\ 
r 


In 


*,'.: 


h\ 


iU\ 


.til 


;  1 


•If 
if 


r 


''M 


»' 


I' 


I' 
I 


n  «1 


■I 

'I 

I 

I.' 


I 


i<l 


.) 


i' 


!i 


26 

sible  now  to  undo  the  damage  that  has  been  done.  IMany  centuries 
wonld  have  to  pass  before  vsoil  would  again  collect,  or  could  be  made 
to  collect,  in  sufficient  quantity  once  more  to  support  the  old-time 
forest  growth.  In  consequence  the  IMongol  Desert  is  practically 
extending  eastward  over  northern  China.  The  climate  has  changed 
and  is  still  changing.  It  has  changed  even  within  the  last  half 
century,  as  the  work  of  tree  destruction  has  been  consummated. 
The  great  masses  of  arboreal  vegetation  on  the  mountains  formerly 
absorbed  the  heat  of  the  sun  and  sent  up  currents  of  cool  air  which 
brought  the  moisture-laden  clouds  lower  and  forced  them  to  pre- 
cipitate in  rain  a  part  of  their  burden  of  water.  Now  that  there  is 
no  vegetation,  the  l)arren  mountains,  scorched  by  the  sun,  send  up 
currents  of  heated  air  which  drive  away  instead  of  attracting  the  rain 
clouds,  and  cause  their  moisture  to  be  disseminated.  In  consequence, 
instead  of  the  regular  and  plentiful  rains  which  existed  in  these 
regions  of  China  when  the  forests  were  still  in  evidence,  the  unfortu- 
nate inhabitants  of  the  deforested  lands  now  see  their  crops  wither 
for  lack  of  rainfall,  while  the  seasons  grow  more  and  more  irregular; 
and  as  the  air  becomes  dryer  certain  crops  refuse  longer  to  grow  at 
all.  That  ever}'thing  dries  out  faster  than  formerK-  is  shown  by 
the  fact  that  the  level  of  the  wells  all  over  tlie  land  has  sunk  per- 
ceptibly, many  of  them  having  become  totally  dry.  In  addition  to 
the  resulting  agricultural  distress,  the  watercourses  have  changed. 
Formerly  they  were  narrow  and  deep,  with  an  abundance  of  clear 
water  the  }^ear  around  ;  for  the  roots  and  lunnus  of  tlie  forests 
caught  the  rainwater  and  let  it  escape  by  slow,  regular  seepage. 
They  have  now  become  broad,  shallow  stream  beds,  in  which 
muddy  water  trickles  in  slender  currents  during  the  dry  seasons, 
while  when  it  rains  there  are  freshets,  and  roaring  muddy  torrents 
come  tearing  down,  bringing  disaster  and  destruction  every- 
where. Moreover,  these  floods  and  freshets,  which  diversify  the 
general  dryness,  wash  away  from  the  mountain  sides,  and  either 
wash  away  or  cover  in  the  valleys,  the  rich  fertile  soil  which  it  took 
tens  of  thousands  of  }-ears  for  Nature  to  form;  and  it  is  lost  forever, 
and  imtil  the  forests  grow  again  it  can  not  be  replaced.  The  sand 
and  stones  from  the  mountain  sides  are  washed  loose  and  come  roll- 
ing down  to  cover  the  arable  lands,  and  in  consequence,  throughout 
this  part  of  China,  many  formerly  rich  districts  are  now  sandy  wastes, 
useless  for  himian  cultivation  and  even  for  pasture.  The  cities 
have  been  of  course  seriously  affected,  for  the  streams  have  grad- 
ually ceased  to  be  navigable.  There  is  testimony  that  even  within 
the  memory  of  men  now  living  there  has  been  a  serious  diminution 


I 


27 

of  tlie  rainfall  of  northeastern  China.  The  level  of  the  Snneari 
River  in  northern  jVIanchuria  has  been  sensibly  lowered  during  the 
last  fifty  years,  at  least  partly  as  the  result  of  the  indiscriminate 
cutting  of  the  forests  forming  its  watershed.  Almost  all  the  rivers 
of  northern  China  have  become  uncontrollable,  and  very  dangerous 
to  the  dwellers  along  their  banks,  as  a  direct  result  of  the  destruction 
of  the  forests.  The  journey  from  Pekin  to  Jehol  shows  in  melan- 
choly fashion  how  the  soil  has  been  washed  away  from  whole  valleys, 
vso  that  they  have  been  converted  into  deserts. 

In  northern  China  this  disastrous  process  has  gone  on  so  long  and 
has  proceeded  so  far  that  no  complete  remedy  could  be  applied.  There 
are  certain  mountains  in  China  from  which  the  soil  is  gone  so  utterly 
that  only  the  slow  action  of  the  ages  could  again  restore  it;  although 
of  course  much  couldbe  done  to  prevent  the  still  further  eastward  exten- 
sion of  the  IVIongolian  Desert  if  the  Chinese  Government  would  act  at 
once.  The  accompan}'ing  cuts  from  photographs  show  the  inconceiv- 
able desolation  of  the  barren  mountains  in  which  certain  of  these 
rivers  rise — mountains,  be  it  remembered,  which  formerly  supported 
dense  forests  of  larches  and  firs,  now  unable  to  produce  any  wood, 
and  because  of  their  condition  a  source  of  danger  to  the  whole  countr}^ 
The  photographs  also  show  the  same  rivers  after  they  have  passed 
through  the  mountains,  the  beds  having  become  broad  and  sandy 
because  of  the  deforestation  of  the  mountains.  One  of  the  photo- 
graphs shows  a  caravan  passing  through  a  valley.  Formerly,  when 
the  mountains  were  forested,  it  was  thickly  peopled  by  prosperous 
peasants.  Now  the  floods  have  carried  destruction  all  over  the  land 
and  the  valley  is  a  stony  desert.  Another  photograph  shows  a 
mountain  road  covered  with  the  stones  and  rocks  that  are  brouo-ht 
down  in  the  rainy  season  from  the  mountains  which  have  already 
been  deforested  by  human  hands.  Another  shows  a  pebbly  river-bed 
in  southern  IManchuria  w^here  what  was  once  a  great  stream  has 
dried  up  owing  to  the  deforestation  in  the  mountains.  Only  some 
scrub  wood  is  left,  which  will  disappear  within  a  half  centur}'.  Yet 
another  shows  the  effect  of  one  of  the  washouts,  destroying  an  arable 
mountain  side,  these  washouts  being  due  to  the  removal  of  all  vege- 
tation; yet  in  this  photograph  the  foreground  shows  that  reforestation 
is  still  a  possibility  in  places. 

What  has  thus  happened  in  northern  China,  what  has  happened 
in  Central  Asia,  in  Palestine,  in  North  Africa,  in  parts  of  the  Medi- 
terranean countries  of  Europe,  will  surely  happen  in  our  country  if 
we  do  not  exercise  that  wise  forethought  which  should  be  one  of  the 
chief  marks  of  any  people  calling  itself  civilized.     Nothing  should 


^/ 


■1 
'J 


'in 
■a] 


u 


•'I 


)!•' 


ti 


l<i^ 


28 

be  permitted  to  stand  in  the  way  of  the  preservation  of  the  forests, 
and  it  is  criminal  to  permit  individnals  to  pnrchase  a  little  gain  for 
themselves  through  the  destruction  of  forests  when  this  destruction 
is  fatal  to  the  wellbeing  of  the  whole  country  in  the  future. 

Action  should  be  begun  forthwith,  during  the  present  session  of 
the  Congress,  for  the  improvement  of  our  inland  waterways — action 

which  will  result  in  giving  us  not  only  navigable 
Inland  Waterways.      but  navigated  rivers.    We  have  spent  hundreds  of 

millions  of  dollars  upon  these  waterways,  yet 
the  traffic  on  nearly  all  of  them  is  steadily  declining.  This  con- 
dition is  the  direct  result  of  the  absence  of  any  comprehensive  and 
far-seeing  plan  of  waterway  improvement.  Obviously  we  can  not 
continue  thus  to  expend  the  revenues  of  the  Government  without 
return.  It  is  poor  business  to  spend  money  for  inland  navigation 
unless  we  get  it. 

Inquiry  into  the  condition  of  the  IMississippi  and  its  principal 
tributaries  reveals  very  many  instances  of  the  utter  waste  caused 
by  the  methods  which  have  hitherto  obtained  for  the  so-called 
''  improvement  "  of  navigation.  A  striking  instance  is  supplied  by 
the  "improvement"  of  the  Ohio,  which,  begun  in  1824,  ^^'^s  con- 
tinued under  a  single  plan  for  half  a  century.  In  1S75  a  new  plan 
was  adopted  and  followed  for  a  quarter  of  a  century.  In  1902  still 
a  different  plan  was  adopted  and  has  since  been  pursued  at  a  rate 
which  only  promises  a  navigable  river  in  from  twenty  to  one  hun- 
dred years  longer. 

Such  shortsighted,  vacillating,  and  futile  methods  are  accompanied 
by  decreasing  water-borne  connnerce  and  increasing  traffic  conges- 
tion on  land,  by  increasing  floods,  and  by  the  waste  of  public  money. 
The  remedy  lies  in  abandoning  the  methods  which  have  so  signally 
failed  and  adopting  new  ones  in  keeping  with  the  needs  and  demands 
of  our  people. 

In  a  report  on  a  measure  introduced  at  the  first  session  of  the 
present  Congress,  the  Secretary  of  War  said:  "The  chief  defect  in 
the  methods  hitherto  pursued  lies  in  the  absence  of  executive 
authority  for  originating  comprehensive  plans  covering  the  country 
or  natural  divisions  thereof."  In  this  opinion  I  heartily  concur. 
The  present  methods  not  only  fail  to  give  us  inland  navigation,  but 
they  are  injurious  to  the  army  as  well.  What  is  virtually  a  perma- 
nent detail  of  the  corps  of  engineers  to  civilian  duty  necessarily 
impairs  the  efficiency  of  our  military  establishment.  The  military 
engineers  have  undoubtedly  done  efficient  work  in  actual  con- 
struction, but  they  are  necessarily  unsuited  by  their  training  and 


29 

traditions  to  take  the  broad  view,  and  to  gather  and  transmit 
to  the  Congress  the  commercial  and  industrial  information  and 
forecasts,  upon  which  waterway  improvement  must  always  so 
largely  rest.  Furthermore,  they  have  failed  to  grasp  the  great 
underlying  fact  that  every  stream  is  a  unit  from  its  source  to  its 
mouth,  and  that  all  its  uses  are  interdependent.  Prominent  officers 
of  the  Engineer  Corps  have  recently  even  gone  so  far  as  to 
assert  in  print  that  waterways  are  not  dependent  upon  the  con- 
servation of  the  forests  about  their  headwaters.  This  position 
is  opposed  to  all  the  recent  work  of  the  scientific  bureaus  of  the 
Government  and  to  the  general  experience  of  mankind.  A  physician 
who  disbelieved  in  vaccination  would  not  be  the  right  man  to 
handle  an  epidemic  of  smallpox,  nor  should  we  leave  a  doctor 
skeptical  about  the  transmission  of  yellow  fever  by  the  Stegomyia 
mosquito  in  charge  of  sanitation  at  Havana  or  Panama.  So  with 
the  improvement  of  our  rivers;  it  is  no  longer  wise  or  safe  to  leave 
this  great  work  in  the  hands  of  men  who  fail  to  grasp  the  essential 
relations  between  navigation  and  general  development  and  to 
assimilate  and  use  the  central  facts  about  our  streams. 

Until  the  work  of  river  improvement  is  undertaken  in  a  modem 
way  it  can  not  have  results  that  will  meet  the  needs  of  this  modem 
nation.  These  needs  should  be  met  without  further  dilly-dallying 
or  delay.  The  plan  which  promises  the  best  and  quickest  results  is 
that  of  a  permanent  commission  authorized  to  coordinate  the  work 
of  all  the  Government  departments  relating  to  waterw^ays,  and  to 
frame  and  supervise  the  execution  of  a  comprehensive  plan.  Under 
such  a  commission  the  actual  work  of  construction  might  be 
entrusted  to  the  reclamation  service;  or  to  the  military  engineers 
acting  with  a  sufficient  number  of  civilians  to  continue  the  work  in 
time  of  war;  or  it  might  be  divided  between  the  reclamation  servdce 
and  the  corps  of  engineers.  Funds  should  be  provided  from  cur- 
rent  revenues  if  it  is  deemed  wise — otherwise  from  the  sale  of  bonds. 
The  essential  thing  is  that  the  work  should  go  forward  under  the  best 
possible  plan,  and  with  the  least  possible  delay.  We  should  have  a 
new  type  of  work  and  a  new  organization  for  planning  and  direct- 
ing it.  The  time  for  playing  with  our  waterw^ays  is  past.  The 
country  demands  results. 

I  urge  that  all  our  National  parks  adjacent  to  National  forests  be 
placed  completely  under  the  control  of  the  forest  service  of  the 
Agricultural  Department,  instead  of  leaving  them  as  they  now  are, 
under  the  Interior  Department  and  policed  by  the  army.  The  Con- 
gress should  provide   for  superintendents  with   adequate  corps  of 


Pi\ 


<i 


n 


JH 


»l 


^1 


fra 


Ml 


.•I' 


i^i 


iiwi    mtm.    i-J» 


5    \ 


}  f- 


f , 


30 

first-class  civilian  scouts,  or  rangers,  and  further,  place  the  road 
construction  under  the  superintendent  instead  of  leaving  it  with 

the  War  Department.  Such  a  change  in  park 
National  Parks.  management  would  result  in  economy  and  avoid 

the  difficulties  of  administration  which  now 
arise  from  having  the  responsibility  of  care  and  protection  divided 
between  different  departments.  The  need  for  this  course  is  pecul- 
iarly great  in  the  Yellowstone  Park.  This,  like  the  Yosemite,  is  a 
great  wonderland,  and  should  be  kept  as  a  national  playground.  In 
both    all  wild   things  should   be   protected,  and  the  scener>'  kept 

wholly  unmarred. 

I  am  happy  to  say  that  I  have  been  able  to  set  aside  in  various 
parts  of  the  country  small,  well-chosen  tracts  of  ground  to  serve  as 
sanctuaries  and  nurseries  for  wild  creatures. 

I  had  occasion  in  my  message  of  ]\Iay  4,  1906,  to  urge  the  passage 
of   some   law   putting    alcohol,   used   in    the    arts,   industries,    and 

manufactures,  upon  the  free  list;  that  is,  to  pro- 
Denatured  Alcohol,     vide  for  the  withdrawal  free  of  tax  of  alcohol 

which  is  to  be  denatured  for  those  purposes.  The 
law  of  June  7,  1906,  and  its  amendment  of  March  2,  1907,  accom- 
plished what  was  desired  in  that  respect,  and  the  use  of  denatured 
alcohol,  as  intended,  is  making  a  fair  degree  of  progress  and  is 
entitled  to  further  encouragement  and  support  from  the  Congress. 

The  pure  food  legislation  has  already  worked 
Pure  Food.  ^  benefit  difficult  to  overestimate. 

It  has  been  my  purpose  from  the  beginning  of  my  administration 
to  take  the  Indian  Service  completely  out  of  the  atmosphere  of 

political   activity,   and   there    has   been    steady 
Indian  Service.  progress  toward  that  end.     The  last  remaining 

stronghold  of  politics  in  that  ser\nce  was  the 
agency  system,  which  had  seen  its  best  days  and  was  gradually  falling 
to  pieces  from  natural  or  purely  evolutionary  causes,  but,  like  all  such 
survivals,  was  decaying  slowly  in  its  later  stages.  It  seems  clear  that 
its  extinction  had  better  be  made  final  now,  so  that  the  ground  can 
be  cleared  for  larger  constructive  work  on  behalf  of  the  Indians, 
preparator>'  to  their  induction  into  the  full  measure  of  responsible 
citizenship.  On  November  i  only  eighteen  agencies  were  left  on 
the  roster;  with  two  exceptions,  where  some  legal  questions  seemed 
to  stand  temporarily  in  the  way,  these  have  been  changed  to  super- 
intendencies,  and  their  heads  brought  into  the  classified  civil  service. 
Last  year  an  amendment  was  incorporated  in  the  measure  pro- 
viding for  the  Secret  Service,  which  provided  that  there  should  be  no 


t 


31 

detail  from  the  Secret  Service  and  no  transfer  therefrom.     It  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  this  amendment  has  been  of  benefit  only,  and 

could  be  of  benefit  only,  to  the  criminal  classes. 
Secret  Service.  If    deliberately    introduced    for   the   purpose    of 

diminishing    the    effectiveness    of    war    against 
crime  it  could  not  have  been  better  devised  to  this  end.     It  fo'rbade 
the  practices  that  had  been  followed   to  a  greater  or  less  extent  by 
the  executive  heads  of  various  departments  for  twenty  years.     To 
these  practices  we  owe  the  securing  of  the  evidence  which  enabled 
us  to  drive  great  lotteries  out  of  business  and  secure  a  quarter  of  a 
million  of  dollars  in  fines  from  their  promoters.     These  practices 
have  enabled  us  to  discover  some  of  the  most  outrageous  frauds 
in  connection  with  the  theft  of  government  land  and  government 
timber  by  great  corporations  and  by  individuals.     These  practices 
have  enabled  us  to  get  some  of  the  evidence  indispensable  in  order 
to  secure  the  conviction  of  the  wealthiest  and  most  formidable  crimi- 
nals with  whom  the  Government  has  to  deal,  both  those  operating 
in  violation  of  the  anti-trust  law  and  others.     The  amendment  in 
question  was  of  benefit  to  no  one  excepting  to  these  criminals,  and 
it  seriously  hampers  the  Government  in  the  detection  of  crime  and 
the  securing  of  justice.     Moreover,  it  not  only  affects  departments 
outside  of  the  Treasury  but  it  tends  to  hamper  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  himself  in  the  effort  to  utilize  the  employees  of  his  depart- 
ment so  as  to  best  meet  the  requirements  of  the  public  service. 
It  forbids  him  from  preventing  frauds  upon  the  customs  service, 
from  investigating  irregularities  in  branch  mints  and  assay  offices,' 
and  has  seriously  crippled   him.     It   prevents   the  promotion   of 
employees  in  the  Secret  Service,  and  this  further  discourages  good 
effort.     In   its  present  form   the  restriction    operates  only  to   the 
advantage  of  the  criminal,  of  the  wrongdoer.     The  chief  argument 
in  favor  of  the  provision  was  that  the  Congressmen  did  not  them- 
selves wish  to  be  investigated  by  Secret  Ser\ace  men.     Very  little 
of  such  investigation  has  been  done  in  the  past;  but  it  is  true  that 
the  work  of  the  Secret  Ser\^ice  agents  was  partly  responsible  for 
the  mdictment  and  conviction  of  a  Senator  and  a  Congressman  for 
land  frauds  in  Oregon.     I  do  not  believe  that  it   is  in  the  public 
interest  to  protect  criminals  in  any  branch  of  the  public  service, 
and  exactly  as  we  have  again  and  again  during  the  past  seven  years 
prosecuted  and  convicted  such  criminals  who  were  in  the  executive 
branch  of  the  Government,  so  in  my  belief  we  should  be  given  ample 
means  to  prosecute  them  if  found  in  the  legislative  branch.     But  if 
this  is  not  considered  desirable  a  special  exception  could  be  made 


'ill 


II 


.((  ; 


f   1 


/•M 


,,'• 


38 


I 


H 


«'       i 


I'     i 


in  the  law  prohibiting  the  nse  of  the  vSecret  Service  force  in  investi- 
gating members  of  the  Congress.  It  would  be  far  better  to  do  this 
than  to  do  what  actually  was  done,  and  strive  to  prevent  or  at  least 
to  hamper  effective  action  against  criminals  by  the  executive  branch 
of  the  Government. 

I  again  renew  my  recommendation  for  postal  savings  banks,  for 
depositing  savings   with  the  security   of  the   Government  behind 

them.  The  object  is  to  encourage  thrift  and 
Postal  Savings  Banks,  economy  in  the  wage-earner  and  person  of  mod- 
erate means.  In  fourteen  States  the  deposits  in 
savings  banks  as  reported  to  the  Comptroller  of  the  Currency 
amount  to  $3,590,245,402,  or  98.4  per  cent  of  the  entire  deposits, 
while  in  the  remaining  32  States  there  are  only  $70,308,543,  or  1.6 
per  cent,  showing  conclusively  that  there  are  many  localities  in  the 
United  States  where  sufhcient  opportunity  is  not  given  to  the  peo- 
ple to  deposit  their  savings.  The  result  is  that  money  is  kept  in 
hiding  and  unemployed.  It  is  believed  that  in  the  aggregate  vast 
sums  of  money  would  be  brought  into  circulation  through  the  instru- 
mentality of  the  postal  savings  banks.  While  there  are  only  1,453 
savings  banks  reporting  to  the  Comptroller  there  are  more  than 
61,000  post-ofHces,  40,000  of  which  are  money  order  offices.  Postal 
savings  banks  are  now  in  operation  in  practically  all  the  great 
civilized  countries  with  the  exception  of  the  United  States. 

In  my  last  annual  message  I  commended  the  Postmaster-General's 
recommendation  for  an  extension  of   the  parcel  post  on  the  rural 

routes.  The  establishment  of  a  local  parcel  post 
Parcel  Post.  on  rural  routes  would  be  to  the  mutual  benefit  of 

the  farmer  and  the  country  storekeeper,  and  it  is 
desirable  that  the  routes,  serving  more  than  15,000,000  people, 
should  be  utilized  to  the  fullest  practicable  extent.  An  amendment 
was  proposed  in  the  Senate  at  the  last  session,  at  the  suggestion  of 
the  Postmaster-General,  providing  that,  for  the  purpose  of  ascertain- 
ing the  practicability  of  establishing  a  special  local  parcel  post  sys- 
tem on  the  rural  routes  throughout  the  United  States,  the  Postmaster- 
General  be  authorized  and  directed  to  experiment  and  report  to  the 
Congress  the  result  of  such  experiment  by  establishing  a  special  local 
parcel  post  system  on  rural  delivery  routes  in  not  to  exceed  four 
counties  in  the  United  States  for  packages  of  f ourth-class  matter  origi- 
nating on  a  rural  route  or  at  the  distributing  post  office  for  delivery  by 
rural  carriers.  It  would  seem  only  proper  that  such  an  experiment 
should  be  tried  in  order  to  demonstrate  the  practicability  of  the 
proposition,  especially  as  the  Postmaster-General  estimates  that  the 


33 

revenue  derived  from  the  operation  of  such  a  system  on  all  the  rural 
routes  would  amount  to  many  million  dollars. 

The  share  that  the  National  Government  should  take  in  the  broad 
work  of  education  has  not  received   the  attention   and  the  care  it 

rightly  deserves.  The  immediate  responsibility 
Education.  for  the  support  and  improvement  of  our  educa- 

tional systems  and  institutions  rests  and  should 
al\\^ys  rest  with  the  people  of  the  several  States  acting  through 
their  state  and  local  governments,  but  the  Nation  has  an  opportunfty 
in  educational  work  which  must  not  be  lost  and  a  duty  which 
should   no  longer  be  neglected. 

The  National  Bureau  of  Education  was  established  more  than 
forty  years  ago.  Its  purpose  is  to  collect  and  diffuse  such  informa- 
tion ''as  shall  aid  the  people  of  the  United  States  in  the  establish- 
ment and  maintenance  of  efficient  school  systems  and  otherwise 
promote  the  cause  of  education  throughout  the  country."  This 
purpose  in  no  way  conflicts  with  the  educational  work  of  the  States, 
but  may  be  made  of  great  advantage  to  the  States  by  giving  them 
the  fullest,  most  accurate,  and  hence  the  most  helpful  information 
and  suggestion  regarding  the  best  educational  systems.  The  Nation, 
through  its  broader  field  of  activities,  its  wider  opportunity  for 
obtaining  information  from  all  the  States  and  from  foreign  coun- 
tries, is  able  to  do  that  which  not  even  the  richest  States  can  do, 
and  with  the  distinct  additional  advantage  that  the  information  thus 
obtained  is  used  for  the  immediate  benefit  of  all  our  people. 

With  the  limited  means  hitherto  provided,  the  Bureau  of  Educa- 
tion has  rendered  efficient  service,  but  the  Congress  has  neglected  to 
adequately  supply  the  bureau  with  means  to  meet  the  educational 
growth  of  the  country.  The  appropriations  for  the  general  work  of 
the  bureau,  outside  education  in  Alaska,  for  the  year  1909  are  but 
$87,500— an  amount  less  than  they  were  ten  years  ago,  and  some  of 
the  important  items  in  these  appropriations  are  less  than  they  were 
thirty  years  ago.  It  is  an  inexcusable  waste  of  public  money  to 
appropriate  an  amount  which  is  so  inadequate  as  to  make  it  impos- 
sible properly  to  do  the  work  authorized,  and  it  is  unfair  to  the  great 
educational  interests  of  the  country  to  deprive  them  of  the  value  of 
the  results  which  can  be  obtained  by  proper  appropriations. 

I  earnestly  recommend  that  this  unfortunate  state  of  affairs  as 
regards  the  national  educational  office  be  remedied  by  adequate 
appropriations.  This  recommendation  is  urged  by  the  representa- 
tives of  our  common  schools  and  great  state  universities  and  the 


i 


>  < 


)■ 


■1. 


34 


/> 


<it 


!■      .' 


1^' 


!*  V 

:<»' 


i 

) 

M 


leading  educators,  who  all  unite  in  requesting  favorable  considera- 
tion and  action  by  the  Congress  upon  this  subject. 

I  strongly  urge  that  the  request  of  the  Director  of  the  Census  in 
connection  with  the  decennial  work  so  soon  to  be  begun,  be  com- 
plied with    and    that    the    appointments  to  the 
Census.  census    force   be   placed    under   the  civil  service 

law,  waiving  the  geographical  requirements  as 
requested  by  the  Director  of  the  Census.  The  supervisors  and  enu- 
merators should  not  be  appointed  under  the  civil  service  law,  for 
the  reasons  given  by  the  Director.  I  commend  to  the  Congress  the 
careful  consideration  of  the  admirable  report  of  the  Director  of  the 
Census,  and  I  trust  that  his  recommendations  will  be  adopted  and 
immediate  action  thereon  taken. 

It  is  highly  advisable  that  there  should  be  intelligent  action  on 
the  part  of  th'e  Nation  on  the  question  of  preserving  the  health  of 

the  country.  Through  the  ])ractical  extermina- 
Redistribution  of  tion  in  San  Francisco  of  disease-bearing  rodents 

Bureaus.  our  country  has  thus  far   escaped  the  bubonic 

plague.  This  is  but  one  of  the  many  achieve- 
ments of  American  health  officers;  and  it  shows  what  can  be  accom- 
plished with  a  better  organization  than  at  present  exists.     The 

dangers  to  public  health  from  food  adulteration 
Public  Health.  and  from  many  other  sources,  such  as  the  menace 

to  the  physical,  mental  and  moral  development 
of  children  from  child  labor,  should  be  met  and  overcome.  There 
are  numerous  diseases,  w^hich  are  now  known  to  be  preventable, 
which  are,  nevertheless,  not  prevented.  The  recent  International 
Congress  on  Tuberculosis  has  made  us  painfully  aware  of  the  inade- 
quacy of  American  public  health  legislation.  This  Nation  can  not 
afford  to  lag  behind  in  the  world-wide  battle  now  being  waged  by 
all  civilized  people  with  the  microscopic  foes  of  mankind,  nor  ought 
we  longer  to  ignore  the  reproach  that  this  Government  takes  more 
pains  to  protect  the  lives  of  hogs  and  of  cattle  than  of  human  beings. 
The  first  legislative  step  to  be  taken  is  that  for  tlie  concentration  of 
the  proper  bureaus  into  one  of  the  existing  departments.  I  there- 
fore urgently  recommend  the  passage  of  a  bill  which  shall  authorize 
a  redistribution  of  the  bureaus  which  shall  best  accomplish  this  end. 
I  recommend  that  legislation  be  enacted  placing  under  the  juris- 
diction of  the  Department  of  Commerce  and  Labor  the  Govern- 
ment Printing  Ofhce.  At  present  this  office  is  under  the  combined 
control,  supervision,  and  administrative  direction  of  the  President 
and  of  the  Joint  Committee  on  Printing  of  the  two  Houses  of  the 


I-*** 


35 
Congress.     The  advantage  of  having  the  4,069  employees  in  this 

Government  Printing    ^^'^  ^'^^  ^^^  expenditure  of  the  $5.7^1.377-57 
Office.  appropriated  therefor  supervised  by  an  executive 

department  is   obvious,  instead    of    the    present 
combined  supervision. 

All  Soldiers'  Homes  should    be  placed  under 
Soldiers'  Homes.  the  complete  jurisdiction  and  control  of  the  War 

Department. 
Economy  and  sound  business  policy  require   that  all  existing 
independent  bureaus  and  commissions  should  be  placed  under  the 

jurisdiction  of  appropriate  executive  departments. 
Independent  Bureaus  It  is  unwise  from  every  standpoint,  and  results 
and  Commissions.         only  in   mischief,   to  have  any  executive  work 

done  save  by  the  purely  executive  bodies,  under 
the  control  of  the  President;  and  each  such  executive  body  should 
be  under  the  immediate  super\-ision  of  a  Cabinet  Minister. 

I  advocate  the  immediate  admission  of  New  Mexico  and  Arizona  as 
States.     This  should  be  done  at  the  present  session  of  the  Congress. 

The  people  of  the  two  Territories  have  made  it 
Statehood.  evident  by  their  votes  that  they  will  not  come 

in  as  one  wState.  The  only  alternative  is  to  admit 
them  as  two,  and  I  trust  that  this  will  be  done  without  delay. 

I  call  the  attention  of  the  Congress  to  the  importance  of  the 
problem  of  the  fisheries  in  the  interstate  waters.     On  the  Great 

Lakes  we  are  now,  under  the  very  wuse  treaty  of 
Interstate  Fisheries.       April  nth  of  this  year,  endeavoring  to  come  to 

an  international  agreement  for  the  preservation 
and  satisfactory  use  of  the  fisheries  of  these  waters  which  can  not 
otherwise  be  achieved.  Lake  Erie,  for  example,  has  the  richest 
fresh  water  fisheries  in  the  world  ;  but  it  is  now  controlled  by  the 
statutes  of  two  Nations,  four  States,  and  one  Province,  and  in  this 
Province  by  different  ordinances  in  different  counties.  All  these 
political  divisions  work  at  cross  purposes,  and  in  no  case  can  they 
achieve  protection  to  the  fisheries,  on  the  one  hand,  and  justice  to 
the  localities  and  individuals  on  the  other.  The  case  is  similar  in 
Puget  Sound. 

But  the  problem  is  quite  as  pressing  in  the  interstate  waters  of  the 
United  States.  The  salmon  fisheries  of  the  Columbia  River  are  now 
but  a  fraction  of  what  they  were  twenty-five  years  ago,  and  what  they 
would  be  now  if  the  United  States  Government  had  taken  complete 
charge  of  them  by  intervening  between  Oregon  and  Washington 
Durmg  these  twenty-five  years  the  fishermen  of  each  State  have 


/' 


lii 


; 


i 


■i 


> 


i 


, 


! 


36 

naturally  tried  to  take  all  they  could  get,  and  the  two  legislatures 
have  never  been  able  to  agree  on  joint  action  of  any  kind  adequate 
in  degree  for  the  protection  of  the  fisheries.  At  the  moment  the 
fishing  on  the  Oregon  side  is  practically  closed,  while  there  is  no 
limit  on  the  Washington  side  of  any  kind,  and  no  one  can  tell  what 
the  courts  will  decide  as  to  the  very  statutes  under  which  this  action 
and  nonaction  result.  Meanwhile  \'ery  few  salmon  reach  the  spawn- 
ing grounds,  and  probably  four  years  hence  the  fisheries  will 
amount  to  nothing;  and  this  comes  from  a  struggle  between  the 
associated,  or  gill-net,  fishermen  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  owners  of 
the  fishing  wheels  up  the  river.  The  fisheries  of  the  :\Iississippi,  the 
Ohio,  and  the  Potomac  are  also  in  a  bad  way.  For  this  there  is  no 
remedy  except  for  the  United  States  to  control  and  legislate  for  the 
interstate  fisheries  as  part  of  the  business  of  interstate  commerce. 
In  this  case  the  machinery  for  scientific  investigation  and  for  con- 
trol already  exists  in  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Fisheries.  In 
this  as  in  similar  problems  the  obvious  and  simple  rule  should  be 
followed  of  having  those  matters  which  no  particular  State  can 
manage  taken  in  hand  by  the  United  States;  problems,  which  in 
the  seesaw^  of  conflicting  State  legislatures  are  absolutely  unsolvable, 
are  easy  enough  for  the  Congress  to  control. 

The  federal  statute  regulating  interstate  traffic  in  game  should 

be  extended  to  include  fish.     New   federal   fish 
Fisheries  and  hatcheries  should  be  established.     The  adminis- 

Fur  Seals.  tration  of    the  Alaskan  fur-seal    service   should 

be  vested  in  the  Bureau  of  Fisheries. 

This  Nation^s  foreign  policy  is  based  on  the  theory  that  right  must 
be  done  between  nations  precisely  as  between  individuals,  and  in  our 

actions  for  the  last  ten  years  we  have   in  tliis 
Foreign  Affairs.  matter  proven  our  faith  by  our  deeds.     We  have 

behaved,  and  are  behaving,  towards  other  nations, 
as   in   private   life    an   honorable   man    would   behave   towards  his 

fellows. 

The    commercial  and  material    progress  of    the    twenty    Latin- 
American  Republics  is  worthy  of  the  careful  attention  of  the  Con- 
gress.    No  other  section  of  the  world  has  shown 
a  greater  proportionate  development  of  its  foreign 
trade  during  the   last  ten  years  and  none  other 
has  more  special  claims  on  the  interest  of  the 
It  offers  to-day  probably  larger  opportunities  for  the 
legitimate  expansion  of  our  commerce  than  any  other  group  of  coun- 
tries.    These  countries  wall  want  our  products  in  greatly  increased 


Latin- American 
Republics. 

United  States. 


37 


quantities,  and  we  shall  correspondingly  need  theirs.  The  Interna- 
tional Bureau  of  the  American  Republics  is  doing  a  useful  w'ork  in 
making  these  nations  and  their  resources  better  known  to  us,  and 
in  acquainting  them  not  only  wdth  us  as  a  people  and  with  our  pur- 
poses towards  them,  but  with  what  we  have  to  exchange  for  their 
goods.  It  is  an  international  institution  supported  by  all  the  gov- 
ernments of  the  two  Americas. 

The  w^ork  on  the  Panama  Canal  is  being  done  wuth  a  speed,  effi- 
ciency and  entire  devotion  to  duty,  which  make  it  a  model  for  all 

work  of  the  kind.  No  task  of  such  magnitude 
Panama  Canal.  has  ever  before  been  undertaken  by  any  nation; 

and  no  task  of  the  kind  has  ever  been  better  per- 
formed. The  men  on  the  Isthmus,  from  Colonel  Goethals  and  his 
fellow  commissioners  through  the  entire  list  of  employees  who  are 
faithfully  doing  their  duty,  have  won  their  right  to  the  ungrudging 
respect  and  gratitude  of  the  American  people. 

I  again  recommend  the  extension  of  the  ocean  mail  act  of  1891  so 
that  satisfactory  American  ocean  mail  lines  to  South  America,  Asia,  the 

Philippines,  and  Australasia  may  be  established. 
Ocean  Mail  Lines.       The  creation  of  such  steamship  lines  should  be 

the  natural  corollary  of  the  voyage  of  the  battle 
fleet.  It  should  precede  the  opening  of  the  Panama  Canal.  Even 
under  favorable  conditions  several  years  must  elapse  before  such 
lines  can  be  put  into  operation.  Accordingly  I  urge  that  the  Con- 
gress  act  promptly  where  foresight  already  shows  that  action  sooner 
or  later  will  be  inevitable. 

I  call  particular  attention  to  the  Territory  of  Hawaii.     The  im- 
portance of  those  islands  is  apparent,  and  the  need  of  improving 

their  condition  and  developing  their  resources  is 
Hawaii.  urgent.       In  recent  years   industrial   conditions 

upon  the  islands  have  radically  changed.  The 
importation  of  coolie  labor  has  practically  ceased,  and  there  is  now 
developing  such  a  diversity  in  agricultural  products  as  to  make  pos- 
sible a  change  in  the  land  conditions  of  the  Territory,  so  that  an 
opportunity  may  be  given  to  the  small  land  owner  similar  to  that 
on  the  mainland.  To  aid  these  changes,  the  National  Government 
must  provide  the  necessary  harbor  improvements  on  each  island,  so 
that  the  agricultural  products  can  be  carried  to  the  markets  of  the 
world.  The  coastwise  shipping  laws  should  be  amended  to  meet 
the  special  needs  of  the  islands,  and  the  alien  contract  labor  law 
should  be  so  modified  in  its  application  to  Haw^aii  as  to  enable 
American  and  European  labor  to  be  brought  thither. 


tl 


4 


38 


■  i 


,) 


1 . 


;  \ 


HI 


We  have  begun  to  improve  Pearl  Harbor  for  a  naval  base  and  to 
provide  the  necessary  military  fortifications  for  the  protection  of  the 
islands,  but  I  can  not  too  strongly  emphasize  the  need  of  appropri- 
ations for  these  purposes  of  such  an  amount  as  will  within  the  shortest 
possible  time  make  those  islands  practically  impregnable.  It  is 
useless  to  develop  the  industrial  conditions  of  the  islands  and  estab- 
lish there  bases  of  supply  for  our  naval  and  merchant  fleets  unless  we 
insure,  as  far  as  human  ingenuity  can,  their  safety  from  foreign 
seizure. 

One  thing  to  be  remembered  with  all  our  fortifications  is  that  it 
is  almost  useless  to  make  them  impregnable  from  the  sea  if  they 
are  left  open  to  land  attack.  This  is  true  even  of  our  own  coast, 
but  it  is  doubly  true  of  our  insular  possessions.  In  Hawaii,  for 
instance,  it  is  worse  than  useless  to  establish  a  naval  station  unless 
we  establish  it  behind  fortifications  so  strong  that  no  landing  force 
can  take  them  save  by  regular  and  long-continued  siege  operations. 

Real  progress  toward  self-government  is  being  made  in  the  Phil- 
ippine  Islands.      The  gathering    of  a   Philippine  legislative  body 

and  Philippine  assembl}'  marks  a  process  abso- 
The  Philippines.  lutely  new  in  Asia,  not  only  as  regards  Asiatic 

colonies  of  European  powers  but  as  regards 
Asiatic  possessions  of  other  Asiatic  powers;  and,  indeed,  always 
excepting  the  striking  and  wonderful  example  afforded  by  the 
great  Empire  of  Japan,  it  opens  an  entirely  new  departure  when 
compared  with  anything  which  has  happened  among  Asiatic 
powers  which  are  their  own  masters.  Hitherto  this  Philippine 
legislature  has  acted  with  moderation  and  self-restraint,  and  has 
seemed  in  practical  fashion  to  realize  the  eternal  truth  that  there  nnist 
always  be  government,  and  that  the  onh-  way  in  which  any  body  of 
individuals  can  escape  the  necessity  of  being  governed  by  outsiders 
is  to  show  that  they  are  able  to  restrain  themselves,  to  keep  dowm 
wrongdoing  and  disorder.  The  Filipino  people,  through  their 
ofiicials,  are  therefore  making  real  steps  in  the  direction  of  self-gov- 
ernment. I  hope  and  believe  that  these  steps  mark  the  beginning 
of  a  course  which  will  continue  till  the  Filipinos  become  fit  to 
decide  for  themselves  whether  the\'  desire  to  be  an  independent 
nation.  But  it  is  well  for  them  (and  well  also  for  those  Americans 
who  during  the  past  decade  have  done  so  much  damage  to  the  F'^ili- 
pinos  by  agitation  for  an  innnediate  independence  for  which  tliey 
were  totally  unfit)  to  remember  that  self-government  depends,  and 
must  depend,  upon  the  Filipinos  themselves.  x\ll  we  can  do  is 
to  give   them   the    opportunity  to  develop    the  capacity  for   self- 


.1*    V 


39 

government.     If  we  had  followed  the  advice  of  the  foolish  doc- 
trinaires who  wished  us  at  any  time  during  the    last  ten    years 
to   turn   the   Filipino   people    adrift,  we  should   have  shirked   the 
plainest  possible  duty  and  have  inflicted  a  lasting  wrong  upon  the 
Filipino  people.     We  have  acted    in  exactly  the    opposite  spirit. 
We  have  given  the  Filipinos  constitutional    government;  a  gov- 
ernment  based    upon    justice;   and   we   have  shown  that  we  have 
governed  tliem  for  their  good  and  not  for  our  aggrandizement.     At 
the  present  time,  as  during  the  past  ten  years,  the  inexorable  logic 
of  facts  shows  that  this  government  must  be  supplied  by  us  and  not 
by  them.     We  must  be  wise  and  generous;  w^e  must  help  the  Fili- 
pinos to  master  the  difficult  art  of    self-control,  which  is    simply 
another  name  for  self-government.      But  we  can  not  give  them  self- 
government  save  in  the  sense  of  governing  them  so  that  gradually 
they  may,  if  they  are  able,  learn  to  govern  themselves.     Under  the 
present   system   of  just   laws   and   sympathetic   administration,   we 
have  ever>'  reason  to  believe  that  they  are  gradually  acquiring  the 
character  which  lies  at  the  basis  of  self-government,  and  for  which, 
if  it  be  lacking,  no  system  of  laws,  no  paper  constitution,  will  in  any 
wise  serve  as  a   substitute.     Our  people   in   the   Philippines  have 
achieved  what   may  legitimately  be  called  a  marvelous  success  in 
giving  to  them  a  government  which  marks  on  the  part  of  those  in 
authority  both  the  necessary  understanding  of  the  people  and  the 
necessar}^  purpose  to  serve  them  disinterestedly  and  in  good  faith. 
I  trust  that  within  a  generation  the  time  will  arrive  when  the  Phil- 
ippines can  decide  for  themselves  whether  it  is  well  for  them  to 
become  independent,  or  to  continue  under  the  protection  of  a  strong 
and  disinterested  power,  able  to  guarantee  to  the  islands  order  at 
home    and   protection    from    foreign    invasion.       But   no    one    can 
prophesy  the  exact  date  when  it  will  be  wise  to  consider  inde- 
pendence as  a  fixed  and  definite  policy.     It  would  be  worse  than 
folly  to  try  to  set  down  such  a  date  in  advance,  for  it  must  depend 
upon  the  way  in  which  the  Philippine  people  themselves  develop 
the  power  of  self-mastery. 

I  again  recommend  that  American  citizenship 
be  conferred  upon  the  people  of  Porto  Rico. 
In  Cuba  our  occupancy  will  cease  in  about  two  months'  time ;  the 
Cubans  have  in  orderly   manner  elected  their  own  governmental 

authorities,  and  the  island  will  be  turned  o\'er  to 
them.  Our  occupation  on  this  occasion  has 
lasted  a  little  over  two  years,  and  Cuba  has  thriven  and  prospered 
under  it.     Our  earnest  hope  and  one  desire  is  that  the  people  of  the 


Porto  Rico. 


Cuba. 


f 


I 


H 

If 
iff 

4 


\m 


il 


^1 


;i! 


' 


K^: 


Ml 


'  I 


40 

island  shall  now  g-overn  themselves  with  justice,  so  that  peace  and 
order  may  be  secure.  We  will  gladly  help  them  to  this  end  ;  but  I 
would  solemnly  warn  them  to  remember  the  g^rcat  truth  that  the 
only  way  a  people  can  permanently  a\-oid  being  governed  from 
without  is  to  show  that  they  both  can  and  will  govern  themselves 
from  within. 

The  Japanese  Government  has  postponed  until  191 7  the  date  of 
the  great  international  exposition,  the  action  being-  taken  so  as  to 

insure  ami)le  time  in  which  to  prepare  to  make 
Japanese  Exposition,     the  exposition  all  that  it  should  be  made.       The 

American  commissioners  have  visited  Japan  and 
the  postponement  will  merely  give  ampler  opportunity  for  America 
to  be  represented  at  the  exposition.  Not  since  the  first  interna- 
tional exposition  has  there  been  one  of  greater  importance  than 
this  will  be,  marking  as  it  does  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the 
ascension  to  the  throne  of  the  Emperor  of  Japan.  The  extraordi- 
nary leap  to  a  foremost  place  among  the  nations  of  the  world 
made  by  Japan  during  this  half  century  is  something  unparalleled 
in  all  previous  history.  This  exposition  will  fitly  commemorate 
and  signalize  the  giant  progress  that  has  been  achieved.  It  is 
the  first  exposition  of  its  kind  that  has  ever  been  held  in  Asia. 
The  United  States,  because  of  the  ancient  friendship  between  the 
two  peoples,  because  each  of  us  fronts  on  the  Pacific,  and  because  of 
the  growing  commercial  relations  between  this  country  and  Asia, 
takes  a  peculiar  interest  in  seeing  the  exposition  made  a  success  in 
every  way. 

I  take  this  opportunity  publicly  to  state  my  appreciation  of  the 
way  in  which  in  Japan,  in  Australia,  in  New  Zealand,  and  in  all 
the  States  of  South  America,  the  battle  fleet  has  been  received  on  its 
practice  voyage  around  the  world.  The  American  Government  can 
not  too  strongly  express  its  appreciation  of  the  abounding  and  gen- 
erous hospital  it}-  shown  our  ships  in  every  port  they  visited. 

As  regards  the  Army  I  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  while  our 
junior  officers  and  enlisted  men  stand  very  high,  the  present  system 

of  promotion  by  seniority  results  in  bringing  into 
The  Amiy.  the  higher  grades  many  men  of  mediocre  capacity 

who  have  but  a  short  time  to  serve.  No  man 
should  regard  it  as  liis  vested  right  to  rise  to  the  highest  rank  in 
the  Army  any  more  than  in  any  other  profession.  It  is  a  curious 
and  by  no  means  creditable  fact  that  there  should  be  so  often  a 
failure  on  the  part  of  the  public  and  its  represenutives  to  under- 


• 


41 

stand  the  great  need,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  ser\nce  and  the 
Nation,  of  refusing  to  promote  respectable,  elderly  incompetents. 
The  higher  places  should  be  given  to  the  most  deser\^ing  men  with- 
out regard  to  seniority;  at  least  seniority  should  be  treated  as  only 
one  consideration.  In  the  stress  of  modern  industrial  competition 
no  business  firm  could  succeed  if  those  responsible  for  its  manage- 
ment were  chosen  simply  on  the  ground  that  they  were  the  oldest 
people  in  its  employment;  yet  this  is  the  course  advocated  as 
regards  the  Army,  and  required  by  law  for  all  grades  except  those 
of  general  officer.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  all  of  the  best  ofiScers  in  the 
highest  ranks  of  the  Army  are  those  who  have  attained  their  present 
position  wholly  or  in  part  by  a  process  of  selection. 

The  scope  of  retiring  boards  should  be  extended  so  that  they 
could  consider  general  unfitness  to  command  for  any  cause,  in  order 
to  secure  a  far  more  rigid  enforcement  than  at  present  in  the  elimi- 
nation of  officers  for  mental,  physical  or  temperamental  disabilities. 
But  this  plan  is  recommended  only  if  the  Congress  does  not  see  fit 
to  provide  what  in  my  judgment  is  far  better;  that  is,  for  selection 
in  promotion,  and  for  elimination  for  age.     Officers  who  fail  to  attain 
a  certain  rank  by  a  certain  age  should  be  retired — for  instance,  if  a 
man  should  not  attain  field  rank  by  the  time  he  is  45  he  should  of 
course  be  placed  on   the  retired  list.     General  officers  should  be 
selected  as  at  present,  and  one-third  of  the  other  promotions  should 
be  made  by  selection,  the  selection  to  be  made  by  the  President  or 
the  Secretary  of  War  from  a  list  of  at  least  two  candidates  proposed 
for  each  vacancy  by  a  board  of  officers  from  the  arm  of  the  ser\'ice 
from  which  the  promotion  is  to  be  made.     A  bill  is  now  before  the 
Congress  having  for  its  object  to  secure  the  promotion  of  officers  to 
various  grades  at  reasonable  ages  through  a  process  of  selection,  by 
boards  of  officers,  of  the  least  efficient  for  retirement  with  a  per- 
centage of  their  pay  depending  upon  length  of  service.     The  bill, 
although  not  accomplishing  all  that  should  be  done,  is  a  long  step 
in  the  right  direction;    and   I  earnestly  recommend  its  passage,  or 
that  of  a  more  completely  effective  measure. 

The  cavalry  arm  should  be  reorganized  upon  modern  lines.  This 
is  an  arm  in  which  it  is  peculiarly  necessary  that  the  field  officers 
should  not  be  old.  The  cavalry  is  much  more  difficult  to  form  than 
infantry,  and  it  should  be  kept  up  to  the  maximum  both  in  efficiency 
and  in  strength,  for  it  can  not  be  made  in  a  hurr>\  At  present  both 
infantry  and  artiller}'  are  too  few  in  number  for  our  needs.  Especial 
attention  should  be  paid  to  development  of  the  machine  gun.     A 


I 


II 


xi 


f 


\'!i\     :'• 


•r  J. 


It    V 


W\ 


42 

general  service  corps  should  be  established.  As  things  are  now  the 
average  soldier  has  far  too  iiiiich  labor  of  a  nomnilitary  character  to 
perform. 

Now  that  the  organized  militia,   the  National  Guard,  has  been 
incorporated  with  the  Army  as  a  part  of   the  national  forces,   it 

behooves  the  Governnicnt  to  do  every  reasonable 
National  Guard.  thing  in   its  power  to  perfect  its  efficiency.     It 

should  be  assisted  in  its  instruction  and  otherwise 
aided  more  liberally  than  heretofore.  The  continuous  services  of 
many  well-trained  regular  officers  will  be  essential  in  this  connec- 
tion. Such  officers  must  be  specially  trained  at  service  schools  best 
to  qualify  them  as  instructors  of  the  National  Guard.  But  the 
detailing  of  officers  for  training  at  the  service  schools  and  for  duty 
with  the  National  Guard  entails  detachiui:  them  from  their  re^-i- 
ments  which  are  already  greatly  depleted  by  detachment  of  officers 
for  assignment  to  duties  prescribed  by  acts  of  the  Congress. 

A  bill  is  now  pending  before  the  Congress  creating  a  number  of 
extra  officers  in  the  Army,  which  if  passed,  as  it  ought  to  be,  will 
enable  more  officers  to  be  trained  as  instructors  of  National  Guard 
and  assigned  to  that  duty.  In  case  of  war  it  will  be  of  the  utmost 
importance  to  have  a  large  number  of  trained  officers  to  use  for 
turning  raw  levies  into  good  troops. 

There  should  be  legislation  to  provide  a  complete  plan  for  organ- 
izing the  great  body  of  volunteers  behind  the  Regular  Army  and 
National  Guard  when  war  has  come.  Congressional  assistance  should 
be  given  those  who  are  endeavoring  to  promote  rifle  practice  so  that 
our  men,  in  the  services  or  out  of  them,  may  know  how  to  use  the  rifle. 
While  teams  representing  the  United  States  won  the  rifle  and  revolver 
championships  of  the  world  against  all  comers  in  England  this  }-ear, 
it  is  unfortunately  true  that  the  great  bod>'  of  our  citizens  shoot 
less  and  less  as  time  goes  on.  To  meet  this  we  should  encourao-e 
rifle  practice  among  schoolboys,  and  indeed  among  all  classes,  as 
well  as  in  the  military  services,  by  every  means  in  our  power. 
Thus,  and  not  otherwise,  may  we  be  able  to  assist  in  preserving  the 
peace  of  the  world.  Fit  to  hold  our  own  against  the  strong  nations 
of  the  earth,  our  voice  for  peace  will  carry  to  the  ends  of  the  earth. 
Unprepared,  and  therefore  unfit,  we  must  sit  dumb  and  helpless  to 
defend  ourselves,  protect  others,  or  preserve  peace.  The  first  step — 
in  the  direction  of  preparation  to  avert  war  if  possible,  and  to  be  fit 
for  war  if  it  should  come — is  to  teach  our  men  to  shoot. 

I    appro\-e  the   recommendations  of   the   General    Board   for  the 
increase  of  the  Navy,  calling  especial  attention  to  the  need  of  addi- 


43 

tional    destroyers  and  colliers,  and  above  all,   of  the  four  battle- 
ships.    It  is  desirable  to  complete  as  soon  as  possible  a  squadron 

of  eight  battleships  of  the  best  existing  type. 
The  Navy.  The  Nor//i  Dakota,  Delaware,  Florida,  and  Utah 

will  form  the  first  division  of  this  squadron. 
The  four  vessels  proposed  will  form  the  second  division.  It  will  be 
an  improvement  on  the  first,  the  ships  being  of  the  heavy,  single 
caliber,  all  big  gun  type.  All  the  vessels  should  have  the  same 
tactical  qualities,  that  is,  speed  and  turning  circle,  and  as  near  as 
possible  these  tactical  qualities  should  be  the  same  as  is  in  the  four 
vessels  before  named  now  being  built. 

I  most  earnestly  recommend  that  the  General   Board  be  by  law 
turned  into  a  General  Staff.     There  is  literally  no  excuse  whatever 
for  continuing  the  present  bureau  organization  of  the  Navy.     The 
Navy  should  be  treated  as  a  purely  military  organization,  and  every- 
thing should  be  subordinated  to  the  one  object  of  securing  military 
efficiency.     Such  military  efficiency  can  only  be  guaranteed  in  time 
of  war  if  there  is  the  most  thorough  previous  preparation  in  time  of 
peace— a  preparation,  I  may  add,  which  will  in  all  probability  prevent 
any  need  of  war.     The  Secretary  must  be  supreme,  and  he  should 
have  as  his  official  advisers  a  body  of  line  officers  who  should  them- 
selves have  the  power  to  pass  upon  and  coordinate  all  the  work  and 
all  the  proposals  of  the  several  bureaus.     A  system  of  promotion  by 
merit,  either  by  selection  or  by  exclusion,  or  by  both  processes, 
should  be  introduced.     It  is  out  of  the  question,  if  the  present  prin- 
ciple of  promotion  by  mere   seniority  is   kept,  to  expect  to  get  the 
best  results  from   the  higher  officers.     Our  men  come  too  old,  and 
stay  for  too  short  a  time,  in  the  high  command  positions. 

Two  hospital  ships  should  be  provided.  The  actual  experience 
of  the  hospital  ship  with  the  fleet  in  the  Pacific  has  shown  the 
invaluable  work  which  such  a  ship  does,  and  has  also  proved  that 
it  is  well  to  have  it  kept  under  the  command  of  a  medical  officer. 
As  was  to  be  expected,  all  of  the  anticipations  of  trouble  from  such 
a  command  have  proved  completely  baseless.  It  is  as  absurd  to  put 
a  hospital  ship  under  a  line  officer  as  it  would  be  to  put  a  hospital 
on  shore  under  such  a  command.  This  ought  to  have  been  realized 
before,  and  there  is  no  excuse  for  failure  to  realize  it  now. 

Nothing  better  for  the  Navy  from  ever}-  standpoint  has  ever 
occurred  than  the  cruise  of  the  battle  fleet  around  the  world. 
The  improvement  of  the  ships  in  every  way  has  been  extraordi- 
nary, and  they  have  gained  far  more  experience  in  battle  tactics 
than  they  would  have  gained  if  they  had  stayed  in  the  Atlantic 


!     m  i 


^ 


n-, 


waters.  The  American  people  have  cause  for  profound  grati- 
fication, both  in  view  of  the  excellent  condition  of  tlie  fleet 
as  shown  by  this  cruise,  and  in  view  of  the  improvement 
the  cruise  has  worked  in  this  already  liigh  condition.  I  do  not 
believe  that  there  is  any  other  service  in  the  world  in  which  the 
averao^e  of  character  and  efficiencv  in  th.e  enlisted  men  is  as  hii:h  as 
is  now  the  case  in  our  own.  I  believe  that  the  same  statement  can 
be  made  as  to  our  officers,  taken  as  a  whole;  but  there  must  be  a 
reservation  made  in  regard  to  those  in  the  highest  ranks — as  to 
which  I  have  already  spoken — and  in  regard  to  those  who  have  just 
entered  the  service;  because  we  do  not  now  get  full  benefit  from 
our  excellent  naval  school  at  Annapolis.  It  is  absurd  not  to  grad- 
uate the  midslii]5men  as  ensigns;  to  keep  them  for  two  }-ears  in  such 
an  anomalous  position  as  at  present  the  law  requires  is  detrimental 
to  them  and  to  the  service.  In  the  academy  itself,  every  first 
classman  should  be  required  in  turn  to  ser\-e  as  petty  officer  and 
officer;  his  ability  to  discharge  his  duties  as  such  should  be  a  pre- 
requisite to  his  going  into  the  line,  and  his  success  in  commanding 
should  largely  determine  his  standing  at  graduation.  The  Board  of 
Visitors  should  be  appointed  in  January,  and  each  member  should 
be  required  to  give  at  least  six  days'  service,  only  from  one  to  three 
days'  to  be  performed  during  June  w^eek,  which  is  the  least  desirable 
time  for  the  board  to  be  at  Annapolis  so  far  as  benefiting  the  Navy 
by  their  observations  is  concerned. 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 
The  White  House, 

Tuesday^  December  <?,  1^08. 


\ 


I 


APPENDIX 


t 


% 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


H 


I 
ji 


ii; 


No. 


No-    I- — Two   HUNDRED   SQUARE   MILES  OF   ONCE   WOODED   MOUNTAINS    WHICH    A    CEN- 
TURY  AGO   PAID   RICH   REVENUE   ON   THEIR  LUMBER   PRODUCT. 
Locality:   District  of  Fou-ping,  Chili  Province,  China.      View  from  the  top  of  a  mountain 
2,000  feet  high,  looking  down  on  adjacent  hills  and  valleys.     Bailey  Willis,  January.  1904. 

No.   2. — Chief  city  i.n  a  district  formerly  rich  in  timber. 

Locality:  Fou-ping  district,  Chili  Province,  China.  View  across  the  valley  of  the  Ta- 
Sha-ho  (Rig  Sandy  River),  including  the  city  of  Fou-ping  and  the  neighboring  mountains  of 
gneiss,  a  region  closely  resembling  in  situation  and  physical  conditions  the  Piedmont  district 
of  the  Appalachians  from  \'irginia  to  Georgia.      Bailey  Willis,  January,  1904. 

3. — Originally  wooded;  settled,  cleared,  and  ruined  since  1725. 

Locality:  District  of  Fou-ping,  Chili  Province,  China,  near  the  headwaters  of  the  Ta-Sha-ho 
(Big  vSandy  River).  This  region  being  on  the  borders  of  Mongolia  remained  but  sparsely 
settled  and  timbered  until  the  reign  of  a  powerful  emperor,  1705-1728,  when  immigration  was 
promoted  and  cutting  of  the  timber  began.      Bailey  Willis,  January,  1904. 

4.— Mountains  resembling  the  Appalachians;  once  wooded,  now   b.^red; 

ARTIFICIAL    TERRACES    WHEREVER    PRACTICABLE. 

Locality:  District  of  Wu-t'ai-shan,  northern  Shan-si  Province,  China.  These  mountains 
were  <)ccni)ied  by  the  earliest  Buddhist  monks,  who  came  to  China  about  65  A.  D.,  and  during 
succeeding  centuries  established  many  monasteries,  and  under  their  protection  the  sacred 
mountains  continued  to  be  clothed  with  pine  forests.  But  Chinese  immigration  having  been 
promoted  about  1725  as  a  protection  against  Mongolian  attacks,  the  timber  was  cut  and  the 
mountains  have  been  laid  waste  in  less  than  two  centuries.      Bailey  Willis,  January    1904. 

No.  5- — Trees  remain  only  where  protected  in  temple  grounds. 


No. 


Locality:    District    of  Wu-t'ai-shan,    northern   vShan-si    Province,    China. 
January,   1904. 


Bailey   Willis, 


No.  6. — Bottom  lands  buried  ix  waste  from  the  deforested  mountains. 

Locality:  District  of  Wu-t'ai-shan,  northern  Shan-si  Province,  China.  Bailey  Willis 
January,   1904. 

No.  7. — Saving  what  is  left  of  the  soil  when  the  forests  are  gone.     Arti- 
ficial  TERRACING. 

Locality:  District  of  W^u-f ai-shan,  northern  vShan-si  Province,  China.  Bailey  Willis, 
January,  1904. 

No.  8. — Farming  in  the  p.^th  of  the  flood. 

Locality:  District  of  Wu-t'ai-shan,  northern  Shan-si  Province,  China.  A  valley  at  the 
base  of  the  mountains  which  during  the  spring  rains  is  covered  by  flood  waters.  The  stone 
walls  catch  some  of  the  sediments  and  crops  are  grown  on  the  soil  thus  saved.  Bailey  Willis. 
January,  1904. 


No. 


No. 


(. — Caravan    passing    through    a    valley    where    formerly    prosperous 

PEASANTS   USED   TO   LIVE,    WHEN   THE   MOUNTAINS    WERE    STILL    FORESTED 

Locality:   Near  the  Wu-t'ai-shan,  Shan-si,  China.     The  floods  have  carried   destruction 
all  over  the  land,  and  its  aspect  is  like  a  stony  desert.     April  14,  1907. 

A    PEBBLY    RIVER  BED    IN    SOUTH    MANCHURIA. 


10 


Locality:  Near  Fong  huang  sheng.  South  Manchuria.  The  formerly  big  stream  has  dried 
up,  on  account  of  the  climate  having  become  more  arid,  since  the  destruction  of  the  forests 
on  the  mountain  sides.  Only  some  scrub  wood  is  left,  which  will  disappear  within  the  next 
40  or  50  years.      June  27,  1906. 


'i 


"w    V 
,« ■*    % 


-^^fcl. 


n 


.-Jifci^*''" 


LU 


LU 


O 


O 


o  rt 

-  t 

u  P 


—  eft 


Cu-, 


CO      ^  b 


Z  M- 

>  cs  C 

_j  j:  o 

q:  c/2  5^ 


rt  rt 


o    ^  ^ 


i  >. 


u.     *- 


C-I! 


I-     =  c 

CO       rt  C 

O   Co 


-.5 
LU    .Si  E 


O     U'T 
2        •  ^  4 

f  C  o 

>  cT  . 
£  ^  >> 

I— I  cu 

_  7;  3 

—  '£  c 

^  ^  >■ 

c  c  " 

5  M    . 

C  .E.£; 
^  t'ci 

"^  0 


i  m 


I 


--ap- 


< 


—  u 


i,  *»" 


ti- 


er    c^  = 

UJ       .^rs 
CD       ^  O 


Z         t£- 

o     ..= 
en     ^;= 


a 


rr.  ^ 


UJ        MM 


o  ^  >• 

u.  -  — 

I-  --rr 

O  .-X 

CO  -  ; 


<     ^  5 


O 


UJ     .::  = 


CM         =   w 


O     O^ 


ill 


-  y  H 


'■^  r. 


5i      - 


O    -i- 


''■•  VT 


-  >. 


5  U.    . 


r  oo 


<=3 


I'  * 


M£ 


.,? 


C   0. 


in 


C\J      .^-  c 


o 


CO 


50 


2  K 

3     "^-r 


Q 


c  o 


U        2 

<       :t 

liJ      ^  iS 


o 


rt  IK 


UJ       X 


t    -Hi 


LU       y. 


CO 


Q 


i.  ?^ 


UJ     ~  rt 

O       o  3 
O     •=  n 


<     c5 


cc      ■- 


~  3 


?   '^Z 


n      o  i- 


^•::g 


■::  r.  >. 

—      t> 

tj-r  re 

-ii  3 

^~  c 
=  r  « 
5.  ^""^ 


*■'    X.    r^ 


H  ;:;  S 
»—  r"  i/ 

<  r^ 


< 


1. 


^  = 


o  tx 


^  - 


c  - 


V  Z 


ti  C 


eg 


liJ 
O 


iO 


3  5-: 


o    ~  — 


1  ^i: 


uj  -  o 

<  :; 

UJ  ^  wT 

_i  -X  :; 


o      - 


-  i 


UJ      ■^-  ir* 


9  '^j; 


CO 


>-5  ° 


I  ■ 


:-  u  " 

-   -   M 


?  =  > 

-::  -^ 
lit:  t^ 

•=  JJ'rt 
— '     -  ^  c 

CD  f  C 

<       i-  ^ 
O      c  o  a> 


UJ 


I  < 


UJ 


UJ 


UJ 


UJ 

< 

CD 


UJ 


C3 


m 


UJ 
CO 
UJ 


n  c  ^ 


£  c 


X     I 


x  ^  i- 


>    -0.5  E 

UJ       ^  c 

O     —  3  a< 

o  5    . 


CE     ;= 


TS"^ 


.—         K    i,    ^ 

"^      o  £i  cs 

<    5-« 

u-     J-=:S 
<      a--  c 

w  -  X 

^  »^  c 
?  o  n 


UJ       c  '^  c 


a  rr 


2  •  ^^  t 

O  r:  2       3 

<  o  ^'  "=  r: 

<  ^^  =^ 


v.  ;i 


<      A^ 


~      ^ 


-  'X.  u  (J 


z    ^  3  >:: 


5      c 


^  ^   S  fJ 


CO  •;:  ?  PJ: 

<  '  5-  tfi 

zj  ._  J.  — 

"<;  '-    -^   r- 

^  i  -  5  =« 


i-< 


<vc^ja 


UJ 


ZI-  n 


■^-z  c 


_i  -  s:' 

O  =  o  :, 

I  ?-^! 

<  -  :  = 

a  -_  - 

cr  ^'1  = 

UJ  -  =  -- 


a:  -  r  s 

ii!  r  -3  u 

*  ill 

o)  =  _;  — 

u  ^  - 

o  —  =  o 

<  T  c  — 


or     ■~~'J-- 


u 


—  ^ 


o     >.  ^  5 

U.      — •;5  — 
a.      .i   -  - 


UJ 


=  JX 


O     .=  u  : 


D        =  =  - 

LLl  Z      "     - 


^        i-ig 


UJ      —•-"■• 


o 


—  t-  '^ 


2     ->..::—• 


I      i  -  rz: 


I-  •    -  -^ 


—  .£  -  ~ 


ui 


O 


_  J-  1/ 


z      i  ;:  >  - 


CO 


UJ 
UJ 


-■  ^  r  > 


CO     -z  y  =  - 


—  ir  -   i, 


CO 

Q  r. 
3   ■- 


C3  f' 

-J  i3 

Q.   — 


U 


Z   - 


UJ  o 

o  .5 

UJ  > 

I-  2 


UJ  g 

a:  c4 

oi  ^ 

1  ^ 

_i  *^ 

2  t 

O  5 


<    CS 


UJ   3 

UJ   •::-. 


z  r 


|!^>' 


'^.  X 


Q        r. 

i  '^ 

U       ^ 


LlJ 


UJ 


o     •= 


UJ  = 

>  % 

Z  "r 

O  s 

z 


UJ  ■ 


CO 

LU 
U 


z     ;:: 


/a 


(\i 


Wi 


l» 


2       3 


3     := 


C/5  — 
UJ 

o: 

0  c; 
ll  n 

1  o 

\-  c 


en     Oh 


UJ 

I- 

C/3 


UJ  C 

CD  5 

CO  -7 

Q  . 

Z  "rt 

<  -w 


I- 


CD     -r 


ic     ^ 


z      >> 


Mi 


•<,  ^ 


W5         S 


Z       — 

13     rr 


C/3       — 
LJ 

q: 

O      t: 
li.       c 


ixl 


t-     = 


o  c 

a:  i. 

U-  ._ 

v. 

I-  = 

(Z)  ::: 

<  7. 


UJ 


3 

C/5      -7 


CO 


■■c     ;: 


z     > 


••T  '•'   ,. 


!  I 


Ml 


,11^ 


li  > 


c 


o 


o 


<     X 


liJ       u 


o  ^ 
o 

LLi  n 

cc  c 

<  ;p 

I-  • 

^  £ 


z      « 

UJ       -C 

I  « 


o  t: 

CO  o 

u  = 

I  c 


o    ■- 


UJ 


—  o 

O 

z  •• 

>  ^ 

CO  •; 


'%-. 


z      4 


o 


I-    ~ 


UJ        •- 


o     - 
c 


c/5  ^ 
I- 

ui  - 

O  > 


ai     — 


UJ      _ 


0  r 

CO  r 

UJ  " 

1  = 
i-  - 


O     •- 


UJ         - 


C/}        «_ 


I-     r 

<     .:i 


O 


<       -. 

05        - 


1^  > 


J 


tfi  o 


Mi 


in  03 


^>. 


Z.  o 


c  > 


s  0 


\- 


Lll 


I        -r 


o 


.=  o 


5    5e 


X       c>^ 


O     -*  o 

2     ;;E 
•  c 

C  (A 

C  o 

C  5i 


c  ? 

■^  c 


i'f 


i 


\ 


•/.   0 


D       -  ■■'■ 

o     -  i 

o    -•- 


LU         -    „ 

I-     .  c 


"Z  u 


_  _     k- 


X  — 

I-    <  = 


c 


o     - 


c  ^- 


x:; 


~   '-f: 


IDfti 


I''    ' 

h 
It 

w 


NO.  9 —CARAVAN   PASSING  THROUGH   A  VALLtY  WHERE   FORMERLY   PROSPEROUS  PEASANTS  USED 
TO   LIVE,    WHEN   THE    MOUNTAINS  WERE   STILL    FORESTED. 

Locality:   Near  the  Wu-t'ai-shan.   vShan-si.  China.      The  floods  have  carried  destruction  all  over 
the  land,  and  its  aspect  is  like  a  stony  desert       April  14,  1907 


^**'jts« 


.> 


-.# 


i.* 


V 

*       ^ 


^^  , 


^%' 


NO     10.  — A   PEBBLY    RIVER    BED   iN   SOUTH    MANCHURIA. 

I-OCALITy:  Near  Fong  huang  shcng.  South  Manchuria.  The  formerly  big  stream  has  dried  up,  on 
account  of  the  climate  having  become  more  arid,  since  the  destruction  of  the  forests  on  the 
mountain  sides.  Only  some  scrub  wood  is  left,  which  will  disappear  within  the  next  40  or  ."if* 
years.     June  27,  1906. 


!• 


7 

i 

1 


I 


•'11 


NO.  9— CARAVAN    PASSING   THROUGH    A   VALLEY  WHERE    FORMERLY   PROSPEROUS   PEASANTS   USED 
TO   LIVE,    WHEN   THE    MOUNTAINS  WERE   STILL    FORESTED. 

Locality:    W-ar   tlic  AVu-tai-sluin     Sliaii-si.   China.      TIic  Hoods  ha\  «.■  carrit-d  destruction  all  ovir 
till-  land,  and  its  aspect  is  like  a  ston\   <lesert        .Vpril  14.  igo7 


m- 

•■*^,*  -• 

»  f*' ,    y*'* 

f^x 

> 

m.. 

4 

*t.' 

'-  §t^^ 

^  ^ 

P 

.1 

P- 

r 

<«.. 

\  * 


At" 


■'.l 


,# 


1^     '*^^ 


»  ''*.' 


,y'»'>>^ 


/J  * 


^i*%H»~ 


'*>- 


M  X 


r  ^ 


# 


NO     10.  — A    PEBBLY    RIVER    BED    iN    SOUTH    MANCHURIA. 

Locality-  Near  Touk  liuanjz  slienK,  South  Manchuria.  The  formerly  big  stream  lias  dried  up.  on 
account  of  the  climate  liavinj.;  become  more  arid,  since  the  destruction  of  the  forests  on  the 
mountain  sides.  Only  some  scrub  wood  is  left,  which  will  disappear  within  the  next  40  or  ."><i 
years.      lime  27.   i()o6. 


END  OF 

TTLE 


